Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Open Institutions (Places For Young People)

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will take steps to ensure that more places are available for young people under 21 years of age in open institutions, so that the number of such persons in closed prisons and Borstal may be reduced.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle): More borstal places are planned, including more open places, but all those currently sentenced to borstal training who are suitable for open conditions are already sent to open borstals. Few persons under the age of 21 serving sentences of imprisonment are suitable for open conditions.

Mr. Janner: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's assurance. However, does he not agree that the incarceration in closed institutions of people under 21 should be regarded as a last resort? Will he not promote an investigation to see whether there are boys, and girls in some instances, who are in closed institutions, but who in fact would be suitable for keeping in open borstals, or other open institutions?

Mr. Carlisle: Out of the 6,544 young people now in borstal some 2,133 are in open borstals. Every individual sent to borstal first goes to an allocation centre where it is decided which is the most suitable borstal for him. I remind the

hon. Member that many are found not suitable for open prisons because of their instability and their likelihood to abscond, but within those terms I agree with him.

Police (Pay)

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to make himself responsible for determining the pay of police officers.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maulding): It is already my responsibility. But I see no reason for altering the statutory provision which obliges me first to consult the Police Council.

Mr. Janner: Have not the police been extremely patient in their pay negotiations? In view of his powers, will the right hon. Gentleman take some steps to speed up consideration of the police pay claim so that these excellent citizens may get proper remuneration for their invaluable work and so that the crime rate may start to go down?

Mr. Maudling: I entirely agree both about their patience and about the contribution of the police to the country. However, the negotiations ought to proceed on the basis which in the long run will be in the interests of everyone concerned.

Dame Irene Ward: When are the police to have a satisfactory answer? My right hon. Friend rightly says that he is getting on with it, but does he not appreciate that the House of Commons wants good rates of pay and good conditions for the police and a jolly good police force, without which we cannot survive?

Mr. Maudling: I entirely agree. What is important is that whatever is determined will be back-dated to September, 1970.

Dame Irene Ward: It must be a big pay rise.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: Does not the right hon. Gentleman concede that as the net increase in the number of police officers in England and Wales this year is unlikely to be more than half the average achieved annually over the last five years, only a very substantial increase in pay can change these circumstances and that it is up to him to use his good offices


with the Police Council in this connection?

Mr. Maudling: As the hon. Member has raised the point, let me say that the figures for last year, 1970, were very much better than those for 1968 or 1969. The problem is wastage and I am well aware of the difficulties involved in that.

Mr. Stanbrook: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this is a matter not just of the cost of living or recruitment but of law and order?

Mr. Maudling: That is so. The Government are totally committed to strengthening the police force and I take it as one of my main responsibilities to ensure that that is done.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: We all like the Home Secretary's kind words, but cash is better than kind words. As the Government seem happy to give 66·2 per cent. rises to judges and the highest-paid civil servants, why cannot the Home Secretary give a similar sum to the police? Would not that resolve the recruiting and other problems?

Mr. Maudling: I think that the hon. Gentleman is anticipating a later Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Lane: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a further statement on the progress of negotiations over police pay.

Mr. Golding: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a further statement on the progress of negotiations on police pay.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a further announcement regarding current negotiations on police pay and terms of engagement.

Mr. Wellbeloved: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on police pay.

Mr. Maudling: Negotiations are continuing. The agreed date of the next formal meeting between the two sides of the Police Council is 11th February.

Mr. Lane: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that very many of us are

anxious to see the most generous settlement possible consistent with the Government's general economic policy?

Mr. Maudling: I am well aware from my postbag of that feeling, which I share.

Mr. Golding: Is the Minister aware that urgency in dealing with any negotiations is also very important? There is a feeling of frustration growing in the police forces, when they see the way in which claims of other public servants are dealt with. It is very important from the point of view of morale that this claim be dealt with not only generously but expeditiously.

Mr. Maudling: I am afraid that I cannot accept that. The offer made to the police gives them a 10 per cent. increase plus an examination of what is needed to deal with the very real problem of wastage. It is understood on both sides that this is the right way in which to handle the problem.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Will the right hon. Gentleman define "national interest" in respect of police pay? Is he aware that prior to the election, his party put in the forefront of public comment and controversy the whole question of law and order? Law and order depend upon an effective, contented police force. Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the police force now is frustrated, that a serious situation is developing, and that it is in the national interest that this pay claim be settled at the earliest possible opportunity without any intervention by the Government's repressive policies on public services?

Mr. Maudling: The Government are involved because we are parties to the negotiations. I am represented on the Police Council. The Government have made it clear that we regard the strengthening of the police force as one of the objectives to which we are committed.

Mr. Braine: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the very serious undermanning of the police in many areas—I have in mind my own county of Essex—is being taken into account by the Home Office in reaching a realistic settlement?

Mr. Maudling: Certainly. The problem is not so much recruitment as wastage.


It is a very special problem to which we are giving much attention.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: While appreciating my right hon. Friend's difficulties, may I press him further on the point of expedition? I remind him that the heart grows sick with hope deferred, and that there is real dissatisfaction among our police at present.

Mr. Maudling: I get the impression that the police force understands that we are trying to provide a framework within which we can have a stronger and more efficient police force.

Mr. David Stoddart: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the greatest problems arising from this delay concerns experienced officers who will be able to retire in the next couple of years? At all costs, must not these officers be encouraged to stay in the service, and is not that why the matter is of extreme urgency in the interests of law and order?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, Sir. That problem is very much in our minds.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: Will the right hon. Gentleman give a categoric assurance that he will not allow any general economic considerations to override the dominant consideration of law and order?

Mr. Maudling: The Government's duty is two-fold: to have regard both to our undertakings about the economic situation, which is fundamental, and to our equally important undertakings about strengthening the police force.

Mr. Fowler: Would not my right hon. Friend agree, apart from a straight pay increase, that one of the most important tests of any new agreement must be whether it provides better incentives for long service and for promotion? In both respects at the moment the police pay structure is quite inadequate.

Mr. Maudling: Once again, I agree that those important factors are very much in our minds.

Custodial Sentences (Legal Aid)

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will send a circular to all magistrates' courts and juvenile courts, recommending that, in all cases where a

custodial sentence is capable of being imposed, whether or not such sentence might be suspended, the court should expressly draw to the attention of the accused his entitlement to apply for legal aid.

Mr. Carlisle: Courts have been advised on the giving of information to defendants about facilities for legal aid. My right hon. Friend is considering whether any further guidance is called for.

Mr. Davis: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply. May we be told when the Home Secretary is likely to complete his deliberations on that point? Would he also bear in mind the present total inadequacy of charge sheets as regards any reference to legal aid? Whereas in other respects the charge sheet specifically headlines issues, it does not do so in respect of legal aid.

Mr. Carlisle: Circulars were sent to justices' clerks in 1968 and as recently as last October a circular went to the courts about the Children and Young Persons Act reminding them of legal aid within those terms. We are considering whether any further guidance is called for, and I will let the hon. Gentleman know the result of our considerations. I am by no means certain at this stage that guidance is needed.

Dogs (Battery Breeding)

Mr. Raphael Tuck: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will seek powers to ban the battery method of breeding dogs.

Mr. Carlisle: I have no evidence that such methods are used for breeding dogs.

Mr. Tuck: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that a recent investigation by the Daily Mirror disclosed that there was a big business in the battery breeding of dogs? Bitches are kept in intolerable conditions, in old hen houses and railway carriages with holes in the roofs and walls, especially for the purpose of breeding litter after litter. Puppies are subjected to long train journeys crated in orange boxes without food and water. Is that the sort of treatment that the Minister condones?

Mr. Carlisle: I repeat that the Home Office has no evidence that battery methods of breeding dogs exist. But if


there is evidence of cruelty or neglect in breeding establishments, that is already an offence under the Protection of Animals Act, 1911. It is open to any individual to initiate proceedings if he believes that unnecessary suffering has been caused. I will look at any evidence which the hon. Gentleman wishes to send me.

Mr. Rankin: The hon. Gentleman surely knows that battery methods are used for animals other than dogs. Would he equally condemn those methods and try to make the lot of the animals involved more Christianlike?

Mr. Carlisle: With respect, the Question specifically refers to dogs.

Mr. Rankin: Yes, I know.

Sir R. Cary: Does not my hon. Friend agree that battery methods, be they in kennels or on farms, are a cruel and insane way of proceeding? Should not they be abolished?

Mr. Carlisle: I speak for the whole House when I say that we are all opposed to cruelty to animals. The present provisions of the law are largely adequate to deal with cruelty when it is found.

Mr. Bob Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman assure us that he will investigate the evidence brought out in the Daily Mirror article to which my hon. Friend referred?

Mr. Tuck: And the T.V.

Mr. Carlisle: Certainly. I will look at any evidence which the hon. Gentelman or his hon. Friend care to send to the Home Office.

Au Pair Girls

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will establish an inquiry into the admission of au pair girls into the United Kingdom, with particular reference to the employment of such girls who are under the age of 17 years.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Richard Sharples): No, Sir. Foreign girls under the age of 17 are not admitted into the United Kingdom for au pair arrangements.

Mr. Davis: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that in one specific case which I

drew expressly to his attention and to which I referred in the Adjournment debate on 4th December, a young Iranian girl aged 15 was working as an au pair? How does he reconcile that with his statement? How many au pair girls are working here? Are not a large number treated as a source of cheap labour by people anxious to obtain their services?

Mr. Sharples: The case to which the hon. Gentleman refers was that of a young lady who was admitted here as a short-term visitor. She was well under the age of 17. When her parents returned to their own country she took a job as an au pair. She would not have been admitted here as an au pair. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would put down a Question on the total number involved.

East African Asians (Immigration)

Mr. Lane: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of Asians in East Africa likely to immigrate into the United Kingdom during 1971.

Mr. Maudling: The present rate of entry is about 6,000 a year.

Mr. Lane: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is an urgent need on humanity and other grounds for an increase in the number of permits granted to United Kingdom citizens from East Africa, even if that has to be associated with a further reduction in the level of immigration from other Commonwealth countries?

Mr. Maudling: I am very much aware of the importance of the problem and the difficulty that it presents to this country. I cannot make any further statement today.

Mr. Gurden: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that immigrants tend to crowd into a few densely populated areas? Will he take that into account when he comes to decide how many more to allow into the country?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, Sir, certainly. The problems here are the very great problem of community relations and our obligations to United Kingdom citizens in East Africa.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: I apologise, first, for the absence of my right hon. Friend


the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). I think that he has already indicated the reason. Would not it be possible to alleviate the difficulty by looking at the distribution of employment vouchers to Commonwealth citizens? East African Asians, who have been entitled to them from the beginning, find that the present allocation does not meet their needs. May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that it would be possible to do this without increasing the overall number of employment vouchers available for people to come here?

Mr. Maudling: I am happy to consider any suggestion for dealing with this difficult problem. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

Earl of Dalkeith: May we have an indication of the number of Asians in East Africa who would like to come here and so escape from policies of racial discrimination which we would find unacceptable and intolerable?

Mr. Maudling: I cannot give any meaningful numbers of those involved, whether they would like to come here or to go to India. Any figures would be pure speculation.

Outdoor Advertising by Cinemas

Mr. Michael McNair Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied that existing regulations on outdoor advertising by cinemas prevent the display of photographs likely to cause offence to members of the general public; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Carlisle: There are safeguards in the general law covering obscenity and indecent display, and in the conditions which can be included in cinema licences; and the film industry itself operates a voluntary censorship. My right hon. Friend is not persuaded on present information that further powers are needed but he is keeping the position under review.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: My hon. Friend may talk about safeguards, but is he aware that many ordinary, decent people are shocked and disgusted by the photographs which appear outside so many cinemas, in the West End, the suburbs and the provincial cities and towns, showing sexual intimacy, both normal and

perverse, including sadism, which in my opinion constitute a major public offence?

Mr. Carlisle: The type of display which a licensed cinema may have outside the cinema may be covered by a term of the licence. I think that what are concerning my hon. Friend are club cinemas, where the licensing provisions do not apply.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: No.

Mr. Carlisle: The law which covers club cinemas is the Obscene Publications Act, and club cinemas are not covered by licensing conditions.

Mr. Rees-Davies: Will my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary draw the attention of the Metropolitan Police to the existing common law of England, whereby anything which is flaunted in the face of the public and regarded by the public as obscene is a criminal offence? Will he further consider whether the statute law needs to be strengthened, having regard to the inadequacy of the present laws on public nuisance?

Mr. Carlisle: Of course my right hon. Friend will draw the attention of the Metropolitan Police to the law on obscene publications. I can only repeat that even stronger controls by the licensing authorities apply to normal cinemas. It is the recommendation of the Home Office in one of their model licensing conditions that where licensing authorities have given notice in writing to the licensee of premises objecting to an advertisement because it is offensive to public feeling, that advertisement should not be displayed on the premises except with the consent in writing of the licensing authority.

Prison Officers Association

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he last met representatives of the Prison Officers Association; and whether he has any plans to do so.

Mr. Maudling: Three days ago.

Mr. Spearing: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that because of conditions beyond their control many prison officers are working in difficult circumstances? Does he also agree that morale, which is of such great significance, can be increased by methods which do not


involve finance, and will he investigate that suggestion?

Mr. Maudling: In the short time in which I have been in this office I have been struck by the difficulties of the work of prison officers and how well they carry out their duties. I have had discussions with them recently on this sort of point.

Parole System

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the working of the Parole Board system; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Maudling: Between April, 1968 and December, 1970 over 5,100 prisoners were released on parole. 258 were recalled to prison during their period on licence. These figures show that the scheme has made an encouraging start. I have recently decided to establish additional panels of the Parole Board at Birmingham and Manchester, and shall continue to keep the scope of the scheme under review.

Mr. Spearing: Will the right hon. Gentleman make a statement about paragraph 120 of the last Parole Board Annual Report? Will he also clarify his reply? Are Parole Boards local review bodies, or is the central Parole Board split into several parts?

Mr. Maudling: If the hon. Member will study my reply, he will see that I said that
additional panels of the Parole Board,
would be established in Birmingham and Manchester. In relation to the whole scheme, the Home Secretary is faced with great problems in deciding to allow the release of people on parole, but it is absolutely right to carry on with this scheme, which is a humane and sensible one. I pay particular tribute to the work of the Parole Board, which is voluntary, detailed and extremely hard. The board does it extremely well.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: In view of the outstanding success of the scheme under the enlightened chairmanship of Lord Hunt, will the Home Secretary consider extending it to cover all prisoners?

Mr. Maudling: That is going a little further. So far the scheme is working well, thanks, as my hon. Friend said, to Lord Hunt and his colleagues. I should like a little further time, and I shall keep it always under review.

Legal Aid, Birmingham

Mr. Carter: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applicants were refused legal aid in the city of Birmingham during the period June, 1969, to June, 1970; and what this figure represents as a percentage of all applications.

Mr. Carlisle: In 1969, the latest year for which statistics are available, the number of applications refused by the Birmingham City Magistrates' Court was 1,317, or 26·4 per cent. and the number refused by Birmingham Quarter Sessions was four, or 1·6 per cent.

Mr. Carter: I thank the Minister for his reply and the letter which I have received from him on the same subject. Will he investigate the abnormally high refusal rate, one person who has been refused being a constituent of mine about whom we have been in correspondence?

Mr. Carlisle: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the magistrates have granted every application for legal aid where the case went to quarter sessions either for trial or sentence, and the vast majority, all but 11, of the committal proceedings. I can only repeat what I said in the Adjournment debate, that the figures in summary proceedings vary because of the different local conditions in different parts of the country.

Prison Officers (Salaries and Conditions)

Mr. Thomas Cox: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he proposes to take to improve the salary and working conditions of prison officers.

Mr. Maudling: A pay review is now due. It will be effective from the beginning of the year. As regards conditions of service, all prison officers will be conditioned to a five-day week by May.

Mr. Cox: While noting the right hon. Gentleman's reply, I am sure he is aware of the resignations from the prison service in recent years and the lack of recruits.


This is an indication of the great concern felt by prison officers. Will he assure the House that on the two points referred to in my Question the prison officers and their association will receive the fullest support from his Department?

Mr. Maudling: As I said in reply to an earlier Question, I very much appreciate the work done by prison officers. Their pay arrangements are similar to those in other Civil Service grades and are linked to them, and a review is now due.

Mrs. Renée Short: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the recruitment of more prison officers is the most effective way of improving the conditions within the service and that the introduction of modern devices in prisons to prevent repetitive work would go a long way to helping the staff more effectively to carry out their duties? This cannot be done without the expenditure of money. Es he prepared to spend that money?

Mr. Maudling: There is a great deal in what the hon. Lady says.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Will the Minister explain why every obstacle is put in the way of lower-paid State servants, whatever their classification, getting a reasonable salary increase, whereas increases of 66 per cent., back-dated, are granted immediately to the very well paid? He dodged my last supplementary question; will he answer this one?

Mr. Maudling: The hon. Gentleman is still trying to anticipate a Question which appers later in the Order Paper.

Mr. Lewis: I am still getting no answer.

Immigrant Children, Birmingham

Mr. Gurden: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what caused the unexpected increase in new arrivals of immigrant children who have entered Birmingham schools since June 1970;
(2) what reply he has given to the Birmingham Education Authority to help in their investigation into the cause of the increase in child immigration.

Mr. Sharples: For the year ended 30th September, 1970, there was a reduction of about 10 per cent. In registrations for

school places by immigrant children in Birmingham. While there was a marked increase in the July to September quarter of 1970 this trend has not since been maintained, and no cause can be assigned to it. The national trend of entry of Commonwealth children has been steeply down.
The position has been discussed with Chief Officers of the Birmingham Corporation and my right hon. Friend will continue to keep it under close review.

Mr. Gurden: Is the Minister aware that suddenly, apparently from nowhere, came an extra 400 immigrant children into the schools in Birmingham who could not be accommodated? This is not, as his right hon. Friend said, a matter only of community relations but of providing the buildings.

Mr. Sharples: I appreciate that in the July-September quarter there was a sudden increase in the number of children coming in, but the number has now returned to the normal level. What is needed is a warning to local authorities in areas where the number of children coming in is likely to increase. We have that under review.

Mr. Faulds: Is not the simple answer to this stupid question a publicly unacceptable but straightforward Anglo-Saxon expression?

Mr. Freeson: Will the Minister advise his hon. Friends and bear closely in mind that the constant use of the term "immigrant children" for children born in this country is offensive? Such children are not immigrant children. We should refer to children being immigrant children only when they are coming to this country and not when they have been born here.

Mr. Sharples: My hon. Friend's Question referred to "immigrant children" they are the children coming into this country and my answer referred to them.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Local authorities in many areas have no machinery for finding out that local employers have attracted into their area people with children, of whatever colour. With its expertise in this matter, will not the Home Office have words with the Department of Education and Science? Wherever children come from, it is a bad thing if, when they go to school in


September, there are no places available for their education.

Mr. Sharples: Yes, but the difficulty is in anticipating the number of children who will be coming in at a particular time. Arrangements are made by the High Commission Office for labels to be attached to passports which may be detached as the children come into the country, but the difficulty is that the local authorities receive that information only after the children have arrived.

Charitable and Sporting Organisations (Finance)

Mr. Edward Lyons: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has to legalise pools not involving skill conducted by societies established and conducted wholly or mainly for charitable purposes in support of athletic sports or games or cultural activities or other purposes which are not those of private gain or any commercial undertaking.

Mr. Maudling: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given yesterday to a Question by the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris).—[Vol. 809, c. 301.]

Mr. Lyons: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that considerable perturbation was caused by the recent court decision which made such pools illegal? In view of the precarious finances of cricket clubs, will he ensure that something is done as quickly as possible to remedy this situation?

Mr. Maudling: If the hon. Gentleman will read the Answer given yesterday he will see that it answers his question.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his decision on this matter, which marches with the principle of my Private Member's Bill, will be warmly welcomed by the Spastic Society, the National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases and many other worthy organisations? Could he confirm that he will keep closely in touch with these organisations in considering future legislation?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, certainly I will. This is a very complicated problem and it will take a little time to work it out.

We thought that the right measures were announced yesterday.

Mr. Marten: In view of the considerable anxiety aroused, particularly in the Spastics Society, could the Home Secretary say, since he used in his reply the word "shortly", when he hopes the legislation will appear?

Mr. Maudling: "Shortly", I am afraid, is the only answer. As I have said, this is a complicated problem, and in the meantime the position of existing pools is preserved.

Mr. Kaufman: Would the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind the great shadow looming over the Catholic church in my constituency because of the doubtful legal position of other games of chance on which they depend to a great extent for raising funds? Would he bear in mind that in making these legal he will be helping them in their school-building activities which are gravely under threat at the moment?

Mr. Maudling: I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman could give me more details, perhaps in correspondence, about that problem.

Young Offenders (Judicial Discretion)

Mr. Edward Lyons: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to remove the fetters on the judicial discretion in sentencing young offenders imposed by paragraph 3 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1961.

Mr. Carlisle: The Advisory Council on the Penal System is considering the sentencing powers of the courts in the course of its current review of the treatment of young offenders.

Mr. Lyons: Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind, when he has the report of the Advisory Council, the fact that judges find it invidious to sentence young people to three years' imprisonment when they think that perhaps 12 or 18 months is adequate, because the present law forces them to choose between a sentence of not more than six months or at least three years?

Mr. Maudling: I am quite sure the Advisory Council will be fully aware of


the criticisms which many of the judiciary have made about Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1961.

Dog-Catching Units

Mr. Cohen: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for reports from chief constables as to the steps they are taking to encourage police forces throughout the country to establish dog-catching units to deal with stray and neglected animals.

Mr. Sharples: The police do what they can, consistently with their other duties, to enforce the law relating to stray dogs. My right hon. Friend sees no scope for extending their responsibilities in this regard.

Mr. Cohen: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his reply will cause very much concern both in Leeds and throughout the country since people are worried about the increasing numbers of stray and neglected animals wandering about singly and in pairs? Is he also aware that, apart from the nuisance involved, these animals present constant hazards to motorists and often are a menace to the general public? Could he assure the House that, in the light of the information available, he is prepared to reconsider the matter so as to reassure the public?

Mr. Sharples: No, Sir. The main onus is on those who callously abandon their dogs.

Mr. Wilkinson: Could the hon. Gentleman give a direction to chief constables to inform neighbouring forces so that when a dog is caught, say, in Bradford and its owner is in Leeds, the owner could make an inquiry at Bradford police station and would know that the dog had strayed to Leeds, because at present there is no provision for owners to be so informed?

Mr. Sharples: Bearing in mind all the other problems which the police have at present, the suggestion might present some difficulties.

Mr. William Price: Is not the real problem the fact that people can purchase dogs without giving adequate consideration to the responsibility involved and the problems which can arise from ownership of an animal? Would it not be possible to consider the possibility of

people having to acquire a licence before they acquire a dog?

Mr. Sharples: The problem to a certain extent is compounded by people who acquire dogs without having given adequate thought to it, and the onus for the appalling cruelty involved falls very largely upon them.

Cigarettes (Sales to Young Persons)

Mr. Farr: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to increase to 18 years the age below which it is an offence to sell cigarettes to young persons.

Mr. Carlisle: I will consider this proposal.

Mr. Farr: Is it not an anomaly that a young person under 18 may not buy or consume a glass of beer in a public house yet, far more seriously, may undermine his health by smoking his head off?

Mr. Carlisle: Whether or not it is an anomaly, there is one major difference and that is the difficulty of enforcement as between the two regulations.

Dr. Summerskill: Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind also that cigarette-vending machines make it possible for young people of any age to acquire cigarettes, and that therefore this proposed legislation would not alter that situation?

Mr. Carlisle: I fully appreciate the hon. Lady's point. It confirms the difficulty of enforcing realistically any proposals of this kind, but we are looking at the matter.

Gartree Prison, Leicestershire

Mr. Farr: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to recruit more staff for Gartree Prison, Leicestershire, in order to reduce the hours at present being worked.

Mr. Carlisle: Prison officers are recruited on a national basis and their allocation has to have regard to the relative needs of all establishments. The needs of Gartree prison will not be overlooked in the allocation of recruits now under training.

Mr. Farr: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that overtime is regularly being worked at Gartree Prison by the staff amounting to 40 hours a week, and in some cases to over 60 hours a week, and would he not agree that this is an intolerable burden which can lead only to stall discontent and a lack of efficiency?

Mr. Carlisle: In regard to the figures the average overtime worked at Gartree Prison within recent weeks has dropped to between 14 to 18 hours a week. The highest peak it ever reached was 28 hours per week early in October. I agree with my hon. Friend that we want to do all we can to increase the staff available at Gartree and other prisons.

Obscenity (Legislation)

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the increase in the number of pornographic titles produced recently, he will introduce early legislation to amend the law relating to obscenity.

Mr. Carlisle: No, Sir.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: May I make it plain that my Question refers to the book trade and not to the other place. In view of the Government's concern for the environment, would it not be appropriate for the Home Office to direct attention to this particular form of moral pollution, about which the patience both of the public and of hon. Members is just about exhausted?

Mr. Carlisle: Although I have a great deal of sympathy with what my hon. Friend says, I would remind him that he of all people has considerable knowledge of the history of this matter and of the real difficulty involved in finding a proper definition to take the place of that which at the moment exists in the Obscene Publications Acts of 1959 and 1964.

Mr. Hamling: In view of what the hon. Gentleman said about the difficulty of defining obscenity, does he not agree that, if there is to be a change in the law, it should be towards making it more liberal and that, because the lawyers cannot define what obscenity is there ought to be more freedom?

Mr. Carlisle: No, Sir, I do not agree.

Sir G. Nabarro: Has my hon. Friend observed Early Day Motion No. 10 which has been on the Order Paper for many months? That Motion was signed by 85 Members of his own party, including myself. Would it not be a good idea if my hon. Friend were guided from time to time by the wishes of his own party?

[That this House rejects the recommendations of the Working Party of the Arts Council that the Statutes of 1959 and 1964, Obscene Publications, and Theatres, 1968, should be repealed; deplores the definition of the permissive society as the civilised society by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, the Right hon. Member for Stechford; notes with concern the decline in moral standards in recent years, manifest by disseniination of increased pornographic and obscene material, pace Julian Press circulars, increased drugs consumption and other undesirable social trends; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to resist all legislative proposals which may tend further to derogate moral standards and to strengthen wherever practicable legislative safeguards against the depredations of drugs, obscenity and pornography in all its forms, and the permissive society.]

Mr. Carlisle: I thought that I had made it clear that the present Government have no intention of going the way we were asked to go by the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) in the last supplementary question, but the fact still remains that it is difficult to find any suitable definition. The Obscene Publications Acts of 1959 and 1964 were based on the recommendations of a Select Committee of the House of Commons. The Government at this stage do not feel any justification for amending them.

Sir G. Nabarro: In view of the thoroughly unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I ask leave to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Vehicles (Unpaid Road Fund Licence Fees)

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce the necessary legislation to give him the authority to relieve the Departments concerned of the time and costs involved in prosecutions


for the offences of not having the necessary vehicle documents, by enabling him to instruct the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to impound vehicles which do not show the current road fund licence, and to ensure that these vehicles are not released from the pound until the production of all relevant documents and licences and a set impoundage fee.

Mr. Sharples: No, Sir.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that there are some 20 per cent. of vehicles left on the roads without road fund licences, roadworthiness certificates or certificates of insurance? Since the police move away properly licensed vehicles because they wait for a few moments on a yellow band, would my suggestion not be a good way of ensuring that we get safety on the road and helping to ease congestion? Surely if the police took away one-fifth of the vehicles which are not licensed it would help to free the roads.

Mr. Sharples: The right to impound a vehicle which does not bear a road licence is a matter for the Secretary of State for the Environment, but I doubt whether Parliament would be agreeable to vehicles being towed away and impounded for this offence.

PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH

Mr. Eadie: asked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech on industrial relations made to London Young Conservatives on 5th December on government policy.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I have been asked to reply.
I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave last Tuesday to similar Questions from the hon. Members for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett) and Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon).—[Vol. 809, c. 717–719.]

Mr. Eadie: Would the right hon. Gentleman convey to the Prime Minister that the language of the battlefield is not helpful in any human relations, quite apart from industrial relations, and that there are far too many battle cries in that speech?

Mr. Maudling: I will convey that to my right hon. Friend. I doubt whether he will agree. I seem to remember in speeches of the previous Prime Minister evocations of Dunkirk.

GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Prime Minister if he will seek to visit the headquarters of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend has at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Sheldon: One matter that the Prime Minister may wish to discuss with G.A.T.T. is the opinion of his hon. Friends that certain import tariffs should be reduced to introduce foreign competition into goods by comparison with what is produced in this country. Has the Prime Minister now decided against this?

Mr. Maudling: No, not at all. Successive Governments have always pursued the belief, which I am sure is right, that this country's economic interests lie in the freest possible exchange of goods internationally. In fact, the more competition the better, because this country can thrive on competition.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH (REPORT)

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: asked the Prime Minister if he will end negotiations for entry into the Common Market, in view of evidence contained in the report of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a copy of which has been sent to him.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
No, Sir. The article referred to is not a report of the Institute, but the work of three of its members published under the auspices of the Institute, which made it clear that the authors were answerable for their own ideas.

Mr. Jenkins: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the National Institute,


which has been making economic forecasts and analyses, does not publish work in its columns unless the Institute is satisfied that the work is soundly based? Does he recognise that the work amounts to a statistical denunciation of the whole proposition on which the Government wish to make application to join the Common Market, and will he withdraw it?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that is true. So far as I understand the situation, the Institute will not publish anything unless it is a scholarly work based on research. The Institute makes it clear that it does not necessarily accept the conclusions of any work which it publishes.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: In view of the fact that it is a scholarly work based on research, and comes to the conclusion that to accept the heavy burden of impact effects—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."] I am paraphrasing the conclusion by reference to the document. [Interruption.] Mr. Speaker, I am in your hands. It is a close paraphrase.

Mr. Speaker: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman is in my hands. I hope that he will be brief.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that to assume the impact effects in order to achieve the dynamic effects would be a triumph of hope over experience? Would not my right hon. Friend think that this calls for a fresh assessment of the economic effects of entry so that hopes can be tempered by the realism of experience?

Mr. Maudling: I had the impression that precisely this was going on at present in the course of our debates.

Mr. Leonard: Would the Home Secretary kindly draw the Prime Minister's attention to the article in the Financial Times by Mr. Samuel Brittan, who is not a supporter of British entry into the Common Market, which casts severe doubt on the validity of the conclusion drawn in the National Institute article?

Mr. Maudling: I think we all read Mr. Samuel Brittan with considerable interest, though not always with agreement.

Mr. Blaker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is possible in a scholarly

work based on research nevertheless to reach nonsensical conclusions, and that that is the view of many respected economists about this work?

Mr. Maudling: I have seldom known a scholarly work based on research to command the agreement of other scholars.

COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS' CONFERENCE

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister whether during the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, he discussed with the Australian Prime Minister the effect upon Australia of Great Britain entering the Common Market.

Mr. Wall: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
I would ask my hon. Friends to await the statement which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be making on his return.

Mr. Marten: In the meantime, is my right hon. Friend aware that the proposals which the Government have put to the Common Market about phasing out Australia from the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement were greeted with absolute dismay in Australia, not only because of the effect on Queensland but because of the effect on the world sugar market system, particularly the International Sugar Agreement? Will my right hon. Friend look at the matter again?

Mr. Maudling: It would be quite wrong to deal with these important matters in Question and Answer when they are entirely germane to the two-day debate which is taking place.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the dismay described by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) is likely to turn into a marked political antipathy resulting in severe commercial disadvantages to this country?

Mr. Maudling: Once again, I think that these considerations fall very much


within the ambit of the debate now taking place.

UNEMPLOYMENT (MINISTERIAL CO-ORDINATION)

Mr. Ashley: asked the Prime Minister if he will establish closer co-ordination between the Ministers concerned with unemployment.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend is satisfied with the existing arrangements.

Mr. Ashley: Will the right hon. Gentleman take careful note of American experience, which indicates that high unemployment has no effect in reducing inflation? Will he, therefore, assure us that every effort will be made by all relevant Government Departments to take urgent action to reduce the present disturbing trend of unemployment?

Mr. Maudling: We always follow American experience very closely. There is a good deal of room for argument about the extent to which American experience bears out what was said by the hon. Gentleman, and conditions in our two countries are very different in these matters.

Mr. Grimond: Is it not a most damaging remark for the right hon. Gentleman to say that his right hon. Friend is very satisfied? Is it not the case that everybody is now seriously alarmed about the under-use of resources, slackness in investment, falling cash flows, and the fact that, however many strikes there may be, the loss of employment through unemployment is more serious than the loss through strikes? Is it not time that the Government took steps to encourage expansion?

Mr. Maudling: My Answer, strangely enough, referred to the Question, which relates to closer co-ordination between Ministers. With that, my right hon. Friend is satisfied.

Sir D. Renton: Is not one of the present difficulties in our industrial relations system that no trade union has specific responsibility to represent the unemployed and that that responsibility falls upon the Government of the day which, in the case of the last Govern-

ment, did so much to create unemployment?

Mr. Maudling: There is a great deal in what my right hon. and learned Friend says.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Even if the right hon Gentleman is satisfied with the arrangements between Ministers, may I ask him to tell us what measures he proposes to deal with the level of unemployment announced today? The right hon. Gentleman will recall the indignation which some of his right hon. Friends purported to feel when we published figures 100,000 to 150,000 lower than those published today. Are we not now in a position in which we have the strongest balance of payments in the Western world, the highest rates of interest, and a very high and dangerously rising level of unemployment?

Mr. Maudling: The fact is that unemployment, as we have often said, will inevitably follow and must result from a high rate of cost inflation, and an unprecedentedly high rate of cost inflation was the main feature of our inheritance from the Labour Party.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Will my right hon. Friend convey to the Prime Minister that one of the dangers of the postal strike is that many firms will be forced to lay off workers because they cannot get letters and orders?

Mr. Maudling: I think that that is undeniable.

Mr. McBride: To reduce unemployment, will the right hon. Gentleman convey to his right hon. Friend the Chancellor the advisability of reverting to investment grants to assist firms new to regions, such as Wales, to develop and to encourage firms outside the regions to come in and start up and thus reduce unemployment?

Mr. Maudling: I understand the importance of that question. Our view is that the Government's measures maintain the differential for the regions and, concerning industry as a whole, maintain the cash flow for investment purposes.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Since a big element in the increase in unemployment today, now nearly 700,000, is not due to


strikes, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to answer the question which I put to the Prime Minister before Christmas: how much of the increase in unemployment in these areas is affected by the change of investment grants? Will the right hon. Gentleman now answer the question which I put to the Prime Minister: how many firms intending to establish new or expanded units in development areas have pulled out because of the withdrawal of investment grants, of which there are a number? Will the right hon. Gentleman say how many?

Mr. Maudling: Considering the time that it takes to build a factory and to provide employment, the change could not have had any practical effect on unemployment.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the questions, of which he has had adequate notice because it was put to the Prime Minister, who said that he would look into it. How many firms have withdrawn their intention to build new factories, which is the only hope of reducing unemployment, as a result of the withdrawal of investment grants? Does not the right hon. Gentleman know? If he does, will he tell us?

Mr. Maudling: I had notice. I was given information about firms which had withdrawn their intentions. But, as I said, intentions to build factories do not affect jobs now.

INFLATION (CHANCELLOR'S SPEECH)

Mr. Barnett: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on wage inflation on 5th December, 1970, at Sale represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Eadie: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Sale, Cheshire, on 5th December on wage inflation represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir.

Mr. Barnett: In view of today's unemployment figures, which are the highest for seven years, should not the Chancellor consider changing both his speeches and policies? If not, are we to assume that the unemployment figures were expected by the Government, or, if that is not the case, are we to take it that the plan is deliberately to increase unemployment?

Mr. Maudling: My right hon. Friend said in November that over the next six months he expected the growth in demand to be broadly in line with the growth in productive capacity. To this forecast, my right hon. Friend still adheres.

Mr. Eadie: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the speech was irresponsible to the extent of its unfairness as no reputable economist in this country is prepared to blame workpeople for the increase in inflation?

Mr. Maudling: It is not a question of blaming workpeople. The fact is that the biggest single contribution to inflation in this country is the growth of money incomes. That cannot be denied by anybody. If we merely look at the facts, the purchasing power involved in the growth of incomes is the underlying factor of all inflationary problems at the moment.

Mr. Taverne: In the light of what the right hon. Gentleman said, that it is the policy of the Government to keep growth in demand in line with the growth in productive capacity, does not that imply that there will be no reduction in unemployment? Is this the result that the Government wish to see?

Mr. Maudling: That was from the standpoint of 5th November when my right hon. Friend was speaking. The major problem now is to get under control the inflation which we inherited, which is a bigger danger to this country's economy than anything we have seen in this sphere for a very long time.

Mr. Thorpe: On Tuesday this week the Home Secretary was generous enough to reveal to the House that the Government had a policy for both prices and incomes, and he suggested that they had been successful. If that be so, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us to what other factor he attributes the steep rise in unemployment and whether it comes as a


surprise to the Government or was expected?

Mr. Maudling: I think that the monthly figure is higher than we expected; but, as the Leader of the Opposition often said in the past, one should not put too much weight on one month's figures alone. My right hon. Friend gave his forecast for the six months from November. We must come back to the fundamental point. If we are facing cost inflation of very serious dimensions, this can, in modern conditions, be accompanied by a relatively high level of unemployment. We cannot solve the unemployment problem unless we can also solve the problem of cost inflation.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he believes that an increase in unemployment is likely to help solve the problem of cost inflation?

Mr. Maudling: No, I did not say that. I said, what the Government have said time and again, that if cost inflation continues at the present level a danger of increasing unemployment will arise. All who are involved in wage negotiations must recognise that.

NATIONAL RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

Mr. Carter: asked the Prime Minister if he will seek to address the next meeting of the National Research Development Corporation.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend has no plans to do so.

Mr. Carter: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that not entirely unexpected reply. In the absence of a visit, will he urge his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make a public statement on the subject of Government-backed research and development, instead of making announcements from time to time of cuts in this vital section of the British economy?

Mr. Maudling: My right hon. Friend said on 14th December that he was considering this matter and would make a statement.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Harold Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 25TH JANUARY—Consideration of a Timetable Motion on the Industrial Relations Bill—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. A certain amount of demonstration of opinion is permissible, but it must be restrained. Mr. Whitelaw.

Mr. Whitelaw: rose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Whitelaw.

Mr. Whitelaw: TUESDAY, 26TH JANUARY—Second Reading of the Industry Bill. Remaining stages of the Fire Precautions Bill. Motion on the Shipbuilding Industry Board (Postponement of Dissolution) Order.
WEDNESDAY, 27TH JANUARY and THURSDAY, 28TH JANUARY—Subject to the proceedings on Monday, Industrial Relations Bill: Committee stage (1st and 2nd allotted days).
FRIDAY, 29TH JANUARY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 1ST FEBRUARY—Industrial Relations Bill: Further progress in Committee.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the announcement he has made is a totally indefensible use of the Government's powers? Is he aware that he has given very little time in Committee so far—only two days in which progress could be made? Is he further aware that during this period we have severely limited the number of Amendments tabled to those that are relevant to the very wide-ranging and comprehensive changes in industrial law proposed in the Bill, and that we have done all we could to deter excessive debate on those Amendments?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the last day on which we debated this


hon. Members on this side of the House were urging faster progress on the Government so that we could get on faster with the Bill? This is not in doubt, and cannot be denied by right hon. Gentlemen opposite. In those circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman now tell us what justification he has for putting this proposal at the head of business for next week?

Mr. Whitelaw: I should like to make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman that the Government will propose time allocations which, Finance Bills apart, will provide for easily the longest time since the war on a Committee stage on the Floor of the House.
On the timing of the introduction of the Timetable Motion, I should like to make it clear there have been occasions in the past when Labour Governments, and Conservative, have introduced Timetable Motions before the start of a Bill in Committee.
My answer to those who ask about the time allotted is that if the proposals that we put forward are accepted the Bill will be debated for about 150 hours on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Harold Wilson: There are 150 Clauses to the Bill for a start, to say nothing of the long and involved Schedules and the importance of a very high proportion of the Clauses and Schedules. If the right hon. Gentleman worked out in his mind—perhaps he did so before the Committee stage began on Monday, and if he did perhaps he will tell us that—how many days should be allocated, why did he not do what is usually done, and that is discuss whether the Opposition are prepared to work to a voluntary timetable? That is what we frequently did when we were the Government. Has the right hon. Gentleman thought of having a voluntary timetable in this case?
The right hon. Gentleman must recognise that whatever his offers or his calculations, what he is now saying, though we shall obviously have to have discussions, is inadequate for 150 Clauses of a Bill of this degree of importance. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to make inoperable the functioning of the usual channels, which have been very good

on this during the last two days, he is going the right way about it.

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman, or anyone else, can accuse me, whatever else they may accuse me of, of not having a belief in the usual channels. Nor does it fall in the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman, or anyone else, to accuse me of not having, in the years of his Government, worked extremely hard through the usual channels, and very properly.
I should like to make it perfectly clear, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman appreciates, that informal discussions—and I am choosing my words very carefully—through the usual channels led me to the simple conclusion that I had to take full responsibility for the decision that I am now putting forward.

Sir D. Renton: Instead of using—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Sir D. Renton: Instead of using a whole valuable parliamentary day for this Timetable Motion, might it not be better to confine it to half a day, and thus perhaps get another half day for discussion of the Bill itself?

Mr. Whitelaw: The Government will make the Bill an effective Order of the Day on Monday, so that if the Timetable Motion is disposed of in less than the full day there will be additional time for the Committee stage of the Bill over and above the days already taken and the proposed number of allotted days if the House agrees to the Motion.

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is one of the most outrageous gags in parliamentary history? Is he aware that I have had no approaches whatsoever from the right hon. Gentleman indicating to me what kind of a timetable he had in mind, whether there was any chance of voluntary co-operation on this side of the House—the kind of offer and approach which was always made by us when dealing with any important Bill? I speak as someone who has worked with the right hon. Gentleman and other right hon. Gentlemen opposite on a number of Bills while we were in Government. This is totally unprecedented, to spring this on us without a word of consultation, without a word of


discussion, without any provocation whatsoever.
Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware, and will he not admit, that there has been no filibustering on our side and no attempt by the right hon. Gentleman or anyone else on the Government Front Bench to speed up the proceedings during the two days that we have been discussing—that, on the contrary, there have been speeches of great length both from the back benches and from the Front Bench opposite, which certainly did not suggest that they thought that we were not making rapid enough progress—

Mr. Hastings: On a point of order. Is it not the custom of the House that, even from the Front Bench, statements of this kind should eventually finish up with a question?

Mrs. Castle: rose—

Mr. Atkinson: Further to that point of order. When the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) raises a point of that kind, should he not first declare his own interest? Should he not declare that he is a director of companies with a very bad strike record?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Hastings: Further to that point of order. I am a director of no company, so far as I know, that has ever had a strike on its hands, so perhaps you, Mr. Speaker, could ask the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) to withdraw.

Hon. Members: Withdraw!

Mrs. Castle: rose—

Mr. Atkinson: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that this is the sort of difficulty in which the House gets when we have this sort of point of order and this sort of further point on a point of order.

Mrs. Castle: I repeat—is it not a fact, and will not the right hon. Gentleman have the courtesy to admit, that there has been no refusal by us to respond to any request by him that there should be any expediting of the business? How can he expect those outside the House who care passionately about this Bill to leave the fight on this Bill to Parliament, if he treats Parliament with this contempt?

Mr. Whitelaw: As for the point about consultation, I will stick to the form of words which I used very carefully. As to the question of blame or anything else, I am not interested in blaming anyone or anything—

Mr. William Hamilton: Come off it.

Mr. Whitelaw: Well, I am not!

Mr. Hamilton: Do not come that any more, Willie.

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not suggest that the Opposition have refused, and I accept what the right hon. Lady said—she asked me to accept that and I am accepting it—

Mr. Hamilton: Why did you not ask?

Mr. Whitelaw: As for the form of words which I used at the start, I am sticking to that. I have the duty to this House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Only to the Tory Party."]—to provide for orderly debate on this Bill at reasonable hours. This Bill so far has taken 20 hours of debating time on comparatively non-controversial Clauses. I believe that, in those circumstances, I am producing a very reasonable timetable, far longer than any other Committee stage since the war, and that I am in that way doing what is right to provide for a proper and orderly debate at reasonable hours in plenty of time on a most important Bill—and I stick by that belief.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is putting the Chair in a difficulty—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, he is doing that."] Any suggestion of a timetable naturally produces strong feelings from one side or the other, but it seems to me that all these arguments which have been used would be very relevant on Monday, when the matter is being discussed, but are not really so relevant today. However, I am obviously in the hands of the House.

Mr. Tapsell: rose—

Mr. Harold Wilson: On a point of order. In a desire to help the Chair get out of the difficulty in which it has been placed not by the House but by the Leader of the House, could I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in view of the parade to the Bar of the House by the


usual channels, whether he can now announce any change in Monday's business, or whether he can say that, before proceeding with this, there will be talks through the usual channels about a voluntary timetable?

Mr. Whitelaw: I must stick to the fact that this Motion is on the Order Paper and will be debated on Monday. I have made my decision. I have announced what the Government believe to be right: to that I must stick.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman, who claims that there are precedents for guillotine Motions—as there are, of course, in all Governments—give the precedent for imposing a guillotine Motion in a wide-ranging, constitutional Measure—[HON. MEMBERS: "On Monday."] No, will he tell us now what precedent there is for imposing a guillotine at the outset of the Committee stage on a Bill which sets up new courts with very fundamental changes in human rights?

Mr. Whitelaw: As for the precedent of Bills which were instituted at the very start, before any Committee stage at all—

Mr. Harold Wilson: Courts.

Mr. Whitelaw: The first point of the right hon. Gentleman related to any Bill—

Mr. Harold Wilson: No.

Mr. Whitelaw: I am sorry. I thought that he had asked that. I will give him the information about all Bills, dating right back to the war, if he wishes. I will check the point about courts and will come to that on Monday.

Mr. Tapsell: Would my right hon. Friend accept that the country at large will regard the timing and content of his statement about a Timetable Motion which will ensure detailed discussion of all parts of this important Bill as vastly preferable to the timing followed by the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) over the Transport Bill, which led to important parts of that Bill never being discussed at all?

Mr. Whitelaw: I accept that the decision to introduce a timetable and the

timing of that decision is always extremely difficult. I believe that, in the case of the Transport Bill, what my hon. Friend said is true. I am hoping to avoid that on this occasion.

Mr. Thorpe: One must assume that it is the wish of the majority of the House that there should be a thorough debate on each Clause of this Bill, whatever view may be taken one way or another. The Leader of the Opposition has commended the virtues of voluntary consultation and agreement. The right hon. Gentleman has commended the existence of the usual channels.
All those facts being so, and the somewhat strange altercation which we witnessed at the Bar of the House not perhaps being the best representation of exchanges through the usual channels, would the right hon. Gentleman, who has been flexible in the best sense of the term in trying to meet the wishes of the House, at least consider this—that, between now and tomorrow, there be further discussions to see if it be possible for some voluntary timetable to be agreed? In the event of such discussions being possible and successful, will he make a further statement tomorrow, if it be his wish to amend business for next week?

Mr. Whitelaw: What I will certainly undertake is this: the Motion which the Government will propose will provide for a very large number of days and, therefore, a very large number of hours, for the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. How those hours are allocated among the Clauses will, of course, be a matter for the Business Committee. About how the time should be allocated we are fully prepared to have the fullest discussion.

Mr. Kelley: On a point of order. If the right hon. Gentleman has the right—and I assume that according to the rules of the House he has—to introduce such a Motion, may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to give a Ruling on whether a Motion of that kind would be in the best interests of the House and the nation and whether it should be accepted in view of the immense public interest which the Bill has aroused? I particularly ask you to rule on this because of the curtailment of discussion that will result from the Motion.

Mr. Speaker: The Chair has many responsibilities, but not to rule on a matter of that kind.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Despite my interest in the Bill, I do not want to question my right hon. Friend about it. May I ask him to repeat the details of Tuesday's business, because some of us missed them.

Mr. Whitelaw: The business for Tuesday, 26th January, will be the Second Reading of the Industry Bill, remaining stages of the Fire Precautions Bill, and a Motion on the Shipbuilding Industry Board (Postponement of Dissolution) Order.

Mr. Rose: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Government strategy on this has been transparent and that they have imported into the Bill four declaratory Clauses from Landrum-Griffin in the United States in an attempt to force a second reading debate on every issue so as to impose the guillotine? Will he now have consultations through the usual channels to provide for the proper discussion of every one of these Clauses, remembering that this is a constitutional Bill of the highest importance which transfers legislative functions to the judiciary?

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's argument about the positioning of the Clauses or his idea about the imposition of a timetable. In fact, I assure him that there is absolutely no truth in that whatever. As for his comments on how the time should be allocated among the Clauses, certainly there can be discussions about that.

Mr. Marsh: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that, from the point of view of his hon. Friends, one of the most controversial Measures to be introduced when the Labour Party was in power was the Iron and Steel Bill, which was very long? Would he agree that he himself was able to take part in discussions to ensure that that Measure went through fully discussed, without the guillotine, because the Government of the day leaned over backwards to enable the then Opposition to put their case? Can he give any good reason why this Bill should be treated any differently?

Mr. Whitelaw: I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says about the Iron and Steel Bill. I am aware of the position, because I had some part to play in it at that time and I therefore accept what he says on the point. All I am saying in this case is that having acceded to the request of the Opposition that the Committee stage of this Bill should be on the Floor of the House, we are being reasonable in offering some 150 hours of debating time for the Bill on the Floor of the House, which is a considerable time indeed.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Onslow.

Mr. Ashton: On a point of order. May I seek your advice, Mr. Speaker, on an important matter? Is it possible for this Bill now to be transferred to a Committee upstairs which, if necessary, could sit on five days and five nights of the week?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order for me.

Mr. Onslow: When my right hon. Friend recalls the curious mess into which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) got themselves on Amendment No. 386 between five and six o'clock in the morning, does he not consider that he is doing the Opposition a great favour in allowing the Bill to be debated at a time when their spokesmen have their wits about them?

Mr. Whitelaw: It is not really for me to say, though I have noticed that the Opposition do not seem to be very satisfied with what I am proposing now. [Interruption]

Mr. Orme: I consider this matter to be too serious to bandy trivialities with the Government. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that an average of one hour per Clause to discuss the fundamental rights of millions of workers is acceptable? What effect does he think this will have on the trade union movement, which will not be allowed to have its case adequately discussed in Parliament? Is he aware that any future industrial action arising out of this proposal will lie at the door of the Government? You have thrown the gauntlet down—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have not done so at all.

Mr. Orme: I apologise, Mr. Speaker. The Government have thrown the gauntlet down. This is an extremely serious matter for Parliament and the constitution. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the major constitutional Measures of the century will not be properly discussed? [Interruption.] Is he aware that in 1906 a whole year was taken on an important Bill affecting the trade union movement? My final word to him is that we will not accept this position.

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate the feelings of the hon. Gentleman, though what he says and the extravagant nature of his attack cannot be justified. Under the proposals which we shall put forward, the House will have 80 hours more of Committee stage plus the 20 hours which we have already had, making 100 in all, and added to that must be the Report stage, Third Reading and debate on Second Reading, not counting any debates there may subsequently be on Amendments from another place. On this basis there will be some 150 hours of debating time on the Floor of the House. Frankly, I believe that this is perfectly adequate to allow hon. Members to put any points of view they wish to put.

Sir G. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the majority of the Conservative Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."] If you will shut up I will speak up.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must not address me in those terms.

Sir G. Nabarro: I apologise at once, Mr. Speaker. If hon. Gentlemen opposite will shut up I will speak up. [HON. MEMBERS: "Get on with it."] Will my right hon. Friend accept that the overwhelming majority of sensible people will strongly support his very reasonable action and the programme which he proposes? Would he turn his mind back to the synthetic indignation displayed by the Leader of the Opposition? Will not a timetable facilitate the Leader of the Opposition being in his place throughout the debate, bearing in mind that he was missing after midnight in every Division that took place on Tuesday night.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The hon. Gentleman should speak for himself.

Sir G. Nabarro: You come and do your job.

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not address me in those terms.

Sir G. Nabarro: I apologise again, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition should come and do his job. He should be present for Divisions—and then he might perhaps cease the practice of leading his party from behind.

Mr. Whitelaw: I thank my hon. Friend for what he said about the time I am proposing. I think I am entitled to point out once again that, Finance Bills apart, it will provide for easily the longest Committee stage on the Floor of the House since the war. There will be some 150 hours available to hon. Members, which is surely a considerable time for them to put their points of view. Over and above that, there will surely be sufficient time for an orderly discussion of the Bill as a whole at reasonable hours.

Mr. Bidwell: Notwithstanding the merits or demerits of the length of time which the Leader of the House is now offering for the Bill, will he explain why he did not use the usual civilised democratic procedure of consulting my right hon. Friends on this matter?

Mr. Whitelaw: Because, in all the circumstances, and having considered all the facts, as I am entitled to do, I decided that I was right to proceed in this way. [HON. MEMBERS: "Do not be arrogant."] I am not being arrogant. I repeat once more that, having considered the position in all its aspects, I believe that it was right to proceed in this way and follow the procedure which I have announced, which will allow for debate on Monday on the proposals which I am putting forward.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have now had half an hour on this point. These matters can be fully discussed on Mon day. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] We must move on. Ballot for Notices of Motion—

Mr. Wellbeloved: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am greatly reluctant to rise to a point of order on this matter, Sir, out of respect for your decision, but it is a matter of the utmost importance to the country and to the House. The Leader of the House has repeatedly told us that he has a responsibility to all the House. In adopting the cloak of a party politician and accepting responsibility for denying the right of the House freely and adequately to debate this vastly important constitutional Bill, the right hon. Gentleman is putting in an invidious position those on this side of the House and those outside, too, who have been trying to persuade all elements of the nation not to respond by unconstitutional action to provocation from the Government benches.
In my point of order, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to allow the pressure on the Leader of the House to continue, in the hope that he may, in the interests of the country, reverse his decision regarding the disgraceful Timetable Motion which he has it in mind to introduce.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has raised what he describes as a point of order. It is not a point of order. He has raised a point such as has been referred to in recent speeches, I think, as a false point of order. It is not for me to decide the business of the House. It is for me to try to protect the time of the House. We have an important debate ahead of us, and we have had half an hour of questions on business. There is to be a full debate on Monday on these very matters. I do not think that the Leader of the House can be under any misapprehension about the strength of feeling on the Opposition benches with regard to the announcement which he has made.
It is one of the matters within the discretion of the Chair, entrusted to the Chair, as to when he closes questions on business and moves on to the next business before the House. I have so ruled, and there is no point of order.

Mr. Harold Wilson: On that point of order, Mr. Speaker [HON. MEMBERS: "It was not a point of order."] On a new point of order, then. I should prefer to leave it to the elected Chair. Do I understand, Mr. Speaker, that you are ruling now that there can be no more

questions on next week's business? As I understand it, during the last half hour, and inevitably so in the circumstances—the Leader of the House cannot be surprised—all the questions have been about Monday's business. But the Leader of the House announced the business for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as well.
Does not your decision, Mr. Speaker, mean that we cannot put any questions to the right hon. Gentleman, for example, about whether a statement is to be made about the Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference and about other important matters? Does it mean that we are getting a guillotine from the Chair as well as from the Leader of the House?

Mr. Speaker: This is a situation in which the House imposes upon itself its own disciplines. If the right hon. Gentleman has a question to ask about some other day's business, or about a statement, I shall allow it, but I shall not permit other questions—they have been put so frequently in virtually the same terms—about Monday's business.

Mr. Richard: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is open, is it not—perhaps you will correct me if I am wrong—for any Member of this honourable House at business question time to ask the Leader of the House whether he is prepared to find time to debate any particular subject next week? If that be so, I am bound to tell you that I have a question about Post Office and telecommunications affairs which I trust you will at some stage allow me to put to the Leader of the House.

Mr. Speaker: There is no Standing Order to that effect. It depends entirely upon the use which the House itself makes of its time. Obviously, one cannot allow unlimited time for business questions.

Mr. William Hamilton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope that you will look up the precedents, some of which were created by your predecessor, when it was the constant practice almost every Thursday when the Government party was the Opposition for the exercise to be pursued sometimes for nearly an hour. On the issue now before us, there are millons of people outside who are most deeply and sincerely involved in a highly controversial matter, and for


you, Mr. Speaker, to try to inflict on us a kind of Guillotine—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."]—is simply not good enough. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am asking Mr. Speaker to look at the precedents and consider whether he is seeking to cut us short on a particular Thursday when he ought to be much more flexible than usual.

Mr. Speaker: I shall certainly look at the precedents. The hon. Gentleman says that I am seeking to impose a sort of Guillotine. Whenever the Chair moves on to the next business, it does in a sense curtail or stop the previous business. There have been 30 minutes of questions on this one matter. If the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has a question to put on some other matter of business, I shall allow it.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. We all recognise the difficulties in which you have been placed, and not by the House as a whole, but I should feel it quite wrong to respond to your generous invitation and avail myself of an opportunity to put questions which is denied to my hon. Friends.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understand the difficulty in which you are placed, but I hope that you will recognise that what is being raised here is a real point of order, for this reason. The Leader of the House is to conduct discussions between now and Monday. It is important, therefore, that those of us who have something for him to consider in those discussions should have an opportunity to say it now, because Monday will be too late. May I therefore, since this is a matter of order affecting the House, ask the Leader of the House to consider this point?
The nature of the Bill, as those of us who have studied it know, is rather unusual. The first four Clauses deal with broad general principles. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is the point of order?"] I am on a point of order to Mr. Speaker. The substance of the Bill begins at Clause 5, and the essential Clauses on which some of us wish to speak are Clauses 5 to 10.
In his discussion through the usual channels, will the Leader of the House—if he must insist on applying his timetable

at all—consider the possibility of not applying it until such time as those essential Clauses 5 to 10 have been fully discussed?

Mr. Speaker: That is very much a matter of argument for Monday on the division of time. It is not a point of order.

Mr. Blenkinsop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I appeal to you to protect the position of back benchers who wish to put serious questions about business for next week but who have not had an opportunity?

Mr. Speaker: I shall allow hon. Members to put other questions about business. To that extent, I shall depart from my decision to move on. But, if any hon. Members who are called persist in going back to Monday's business, I shall have to move on very quickly.

Mr. Faulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have always understood that you, Sir, were the servant of the House. When it is clear that a large section of the House wishes to pursue a certain matter, I should have thought that it was your constitutional duty to allow it to do so.

Mr. Speaker: I heard the hon. Member pay his tribute to Dr. Horace King. I was hoping to learn by experience that he had profited by his tuition from Dr. King—

Mr. Faulds: You may have to earn it, Sir.

Mr. Blenkinsop: May I ask the Leader of the House whether—

Mr. Harold Walker: On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Order. If I have these continued points of order relating to a matter on which I have already ruled, it will not be possible for me to allow hon. Members to ask questions about other days' business next week.

Mr. Harold Walker: With great respect—

Mr. English: Further to that point of order. With respect, you have ruled more than once and not in the same way upon this. Do I take it that you are now ruling that not only the Leader of the Opposition but all others who may desire it may ask questions on business for


days other than next Monday? If so, do you realise—or am I correct in saying—that, however sensible it may be, you are creating a completely new precedent for splitting up business questions? It may be sensible but I do not think it should be done in the heat of the moment. Rather, it should be done after mature consideration.

Mr. Speaker: The Chair is in a difficulty in a situation like this. Whenever a Timetable Motion is proposed there is always great indignation, and I think that I allowed a reasonable time for that indignation to show itself. My judgment in seeking to move on, and I only sought to move on to the next business, is because we are to have a debate on Monday when all of these arguments will be very relevant.
Then the point was raised by the Leader of the Opposition that it was unfair to move on without any opportunity being given to hon. Members to ask questions about the business on other days next week. I thought that I was being reasonable and flexible, in the better sense of the word, in saying that I would allow, not all questions but some questions, about the business for the other days next week. If that is not the wish of the House, I will move on at once.

Mr. Lawson: I must express my great sympathy for the position in which you are in, Mr. Speaker. Could I ask whether it is your opinion that the mode of behaviour of the Leader of the House is indicative of the kind of conditions that have provoked the industrial troubles which exist in the country today?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order and it is not for me. Mr. Blenkinsop.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order.

Mr. Harold Walker: On a point of order.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: With respect, Mr. Speaker, you have just announced that we are not to have any more questions on Monday's business. You went on to explain that the reason was that you had already allowed half an hour's debate. Could I ask you to reflect on the fact, and it is a fact, that your predecessor used invariably to try to carry out a

system whereby he allowed one back bencher to ask a question on next week's business and then a Member of the Front Bench. One of the difficulties is that the half hour to which you referred has been taken up almost solidly by the two Front Benches—and I do not object to that. This is one of the difficulties which arose in discussing the Industrial Relations Bill on Monday, when the Chief Whip admitted there was no filibustering; when he went round to keep quiet some of his back benchers who were filibustering—

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Lewis: Yes he did. On Clause 1 the Government took 62 minutes and the Opposition 53 minutes. My Front Bench asked me not to move a number of my Amendments and I agreed, but I had a number of Amendments on the Order Paper which I did not move, but I had 11 minutes of the debate. Now the usual channels will work and that means that I will not have even that opportunity—[Laughter.]—when I say "I", this applies to back benchers on both sides who will not have the opportunity either of taking part in the "usual channels" negotiations or of putting their points here. This is on the question of a Bill which is supposed to say to workers and trade unions, "Get together and have voluntary negotiations". Here are the Government telling the trade unions to have voluntary negotiations but refusing to negotiate with the Opposition and you, Sir—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Lewis: —are refusing to allow hon. Members to put their objections about next week's business.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is not on a point of order, he is on a point of argument. All of these arguments will be very relevant on Monday but not today.

Mr. Harold Wilson: On a point of order.

Mr. Harold Walker: May I seek your guidance—

Hon. Members: Which Harold?

Mr. Speaker: I call the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Harold Wilson: As I understand it, you have suggested that if we now cease points of order on the question of Monday's business, you are prepared to allow a little time, in your discretion, for further questions about next week's business, some of which may be of great importance to individual hon. Members and some of which may be of importance to the whole country. If that is so, might I suggest, through you, that we accept that and that we raise no more points of order now on Monday's business but instead put one or two questions, if you are prepared to allow them, on the rest of the week.

Mr. Blenkinsop: rose—

Mr. Harold Walker: On a point of order—[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.]—I have been in this House approximately seven years and this is the first time, and I hope the last for some while, that I have sought to raise a point of order. May I seek your advice? As I understand it, every Thursday the Leader of the House proposes to the House what the business for the following week should be. We do not, as back benchers, necessarily accept that as a fait accompli. We have some right to comment on the acceptability or otherwise of the business for next week. It seems that we are being told, whether we like it or not, what the business for next week will be without being able to impress our views upon the Leader of the House about what I submit is not any guillotine Motion but a quite unprecedented, exceptional, most extraordinary and serious situation.
It is serious because I want to impress upon the Leader of the House that between now and Monday there may very well be, and I say this quite seriously and guardedly, an industrial response to what has been announced this afternoon. We earnestly hope that there will not be but we cannot blind ourselves to the realities of the situation. I would urge upon you the importance of allowing the House to seek to dissuade the Leader of the House from going forward with next Monday's business.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for the way in which he has put that point of order. I think it is a very serious question for the House to decide

how it should conduct its business. Technically, all that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are allowed to do is to ask questions about business, I do not think that they are allowed to question the business, to dispute decisions. They are allowed to ask questions about the business for next week. There has grown up the practice of a very wide-ranging discussion.
I will certainly take into account all the points which have been put by hon. Members during the course of this afternoon's discussion, if that is the right way to describe it, because the Chair is in a difficulty. It tends to take up a great deal of the time of the House and I think for the moment it will be much better to deal with the situation in the way in which the Leader of the Opposition has suggested. Mr. Blenkinsop.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Will you reflect on that, Mr. Speaker? You said a moment ago that it is in order for hon. Members to ask questions about next week's business but not to seek changes. With respect, if that becomes a Ruling it is completely contrary to my experience over 26 years, which is that the object of asking questions on next week's business is to seek a change and to ask whether in place of particular business Motion No. So-and-so or some other business should be put in its place. I hope that you will consider this, and see whether you have given the right ruling.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has made a real point. When I said that hon. Members are not allowed to question the business I meant they must not discuss the merits of the topics chosen. They may ask questions and seek to make changes, certainly. I promise that I shall carefully consider what has been said about these matters today with regard to future, I hope, shorter conduct of this period in our weekly discussion.

Mr. Blenkinsop: May I ask the Leader of the House for time next week to debate Motion No. 227 on safety at sea?
[That this House deeply deplores Her Majesty's Government's decision to withdraw radio telegraphy officers from vessels engaged in the north-east coal trade; is concerned about the safety of these


vessels and their crews; alarmed at there being no control over the continental movements of such vessels without them having adequate radio telegraphic equipment and certificated radio officers; and hopes that Her Majesty's Government will reconsider its decision, which was taken without adequate consultation and which is distressing members and families of the Radio and Electronic Officers Union, the National Union of Seamen, the Mercantile Marine Service Association, the Merchant Navy and airline officers and the Amalgamated Engineers Union.]
The Government have taken decisions that involve serious danger to crews of small vessels from the North-East Coast. I suggest that it would be possible to debate the Motion on Monday if the right hon. Gentleman withdrew his guillotine Motion.

Mr. Whitelaw: I fully accept the importance of the subject the hon. Gentleman has raised and shall certainly consider the whole problem of debate on it, but I could not give time next week.

Mr. Rees-Davies: Is there likely to be an opportunity to consider the postal strike further early in the week with a further statement from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, particularly bearing in mind the very detailed written arbitration agreements in existence and the possibility of securing greater expedition of the removal of grievances by the postmen? There are two sides to the matter, and it might be wise to have an opportunity to consider it further next week.

Mr. Whitelaw: I shall convey those views to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. If a statement has to be made on that or any other subject to do with the postal strike I know that my right hon. Friend will wish to keep the House very fully informed.

Mr. Mulley: Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Minister for Transport Industries to make a statement on his actions in causing a receiver to be appointed and operations to be cancelled yesterday by Skyways Coach Air, a company in which a substantial amount of public money is invested, since I was not able to ask a Private Notice Question today?

Mr. Whitelaw: I shall call the attention of my right hon. Friend to what the right hon. Gentleman says.

Mr. Richard: Will the Leader of the House request his right hon. Friend the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications to make a statement next week on the future of commercial radio? Is he aware that the right hon. Gentleman told me in answer to a Question at the beginning of December that a statement would be made and a White Paper produced "early next year". It is now three weeks into "next year". When are we likely to have the White Paper?

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot say exactly. I think that the hon. Gentleman will accept that it is still "early next year". As soon as the Government are ready with proposals, they will be put before the House.

Miss Devlin: Since the Leader of the House seems determined to cut time on other important matters, may I ask him whether he will find time to discuss a very important matter that the House must discuss, if not next week at least at the earliest opportunity. That is the imprisonment of the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. McManus) for activities which are not criminal activities in this country.
Will the right hon. Gentleman make a statement as to what the rights and privileges of that hon. Member are, since the hon. Gentleman's position cannot be equated with my own? The hon. Gentleman now in prison is not guilty of a criminal offence in this country, that is, in the rest of the United Kingdom. In view not only of the serious situation pertaining not only to the hon. Gentleman but the whole situation in Northern Ireland, will the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and his hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence to make statements and give an assurance that there will be no internment, to rearming of the police and no relaxation of the rules of procedure of the Army, such as allowing shooting to kill, without the opportunity for the House to discuss them?

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate the importance of the questions the hon. Lady raises. Some of them are rather a matter


for you, Mr. Speaker, some are for the Northern Ireland Government, and some may be matters for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I shall see that all these questions are properly considered. I cannot give time for debate next week, but I note the importance of the subject and I shall call the attention of my right hon. Friends concerned to what the hon. Lady said.

Mr. Turton: Can my right hon. Friend say on what day my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make a statement of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference?

Mr. Whitelaw: Naturally, I have not been able to discuss the matter with my right hon. Friend. I shall discuss it with him as soon as he returns. I know that he will wish to keep the House very closely informed at an early moment.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: Does the Home Secretary intend to make a statement next week about the future of the Carlisle and District State Management Scheme which it is proposed to dispose of in favour of private industry? Does he agree that the method of giving this information in reply to a Written Question is very unwholesome and inconsistent with the best traditions of the House?

Mr. Whitelaw: On the question of how the decision was announced, there are every week and every day pressures both for statements and for the time of the House for subsequent debates to be safeguarded. I consulted my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and we both considered that as the matter would subsequently require legislation, and in view of the pressure of other statements, it was right that the announcement should be made in that way. Despite the fact that I have a close personal constituency interest in the matter, I still took that decision, though I should have liked it the other way. In the interests of the House I thought that it was right to do it like that.

Mr. Gorst: Is it possible to find time at an early date to discuss the televising of the proceedings of the House, to enable the public to witness the debate on the result of the Common Market negotiations?

Mr. Whitelaw: The House considered this question in the last Parliament and decided on a vote, with a majority of one, that it would not proceed with the televising of Parliament. I voted in favour, and I do not disguise from the House that I still personally hold that view. But this is very much a matter for the House of Commons as a whole. I hope that it will be carefully considered in the new Parliament, but I do not think that the time for a debate has yet come. There should be more careful consideration in the House as a whole.

Mr. Dalyell: As no fewer than 382 journalists are accredited to the Palace of Westminster, can the Leader of the House find time for a statement, either by himself or by you, Mr. Speaker, on the important issues that arise out of a case, details of which I have sent him, of an application for admission to the Lobby in relation to the technical Press? Could he make a statement on the criteria by which admission to the Lobby is determined?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am prepared to look into the hon. Gentleman's questions. I am not quite clear on the responsibilities in the matter, and therefore should not like to give an answer before very careful consideration.

Mr. Hastings: In view of the publication today of the full Roskill Report, will my right hon. Friend accept the gratitude of many of those concerned for the speed with which that large document has been produced? But does he realise that the price of £5 places it out of the range of many of those whose homes are threatened by its conclusions? When is the debate likely to take place?

Mr. Whitelaw: I think that the only matter for which I should answer is the question of when there will be a debate. I said last week, and I stand by that promise, that there will be an opportunity for the House to debate the subject before any Government decision has been taken. I cannot at this stage say exactly when the debate will take place.

Mr. Mackintosh: Is the Leader of the House aware that the annual White Paper on the five-year rolling programme of public expenditure, which was due out in the autumn, has not yet appeared, and that until it appears we cannot have the


annual to-day debate which he has promised and which I gather is now a regular feature of our proceedings? Can he say when the White Paper will appear and when the two-day debate will take place?

Mr. Whitelaw: The publication of the White Paper will be very soon. I have made it clear in answers to questions before, but for the avoidance of doubt perhaps I should repeat, that in the somewhat exceptional conditions of this year, when there were the debates in the autumn, I thought it reasonable—though I am in the hands of the House—that this time there should be a one-day debate. I have given the guarantee of two days for the future.

Mr. Cordle: In view of the importance of the success of the hotel and tourist industry and its difficulties, and the statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, can my right hon. Friend give us some time to debate the matter, not next week but perhaps a little later, in view of the forthcoming season?

Mr. Whitelaw: This is an important subject, but I cannot offer time for a debate in the very near future.

Mr. Bob Brown: In view of the seriousness of the unemployment figures announced today and the tragic figures that are developing in the regions, will the right hon. Gentleman, even at this late stage, consider dropping the nonsensical Motion for Monday and substitute a debate on the much more relevant topic of unemployment?

Mr. Whitelaw: I accept the extreme importance of the matter. No doubt the hon. Gentleman heard the exchanges with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary earlier. I could not give time for such a debate next week.

Mr. Wellbeloved: In view of the astounding revelation by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at Question Time this week that he is conducting secret talks to impose a meat tax on the British public, will the right hon. Gentle-

man find time next week or as soon as possible for us to debate this departure from the normal supply of low-priced meat to the housewife?

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot accept the construction that the hon. Gentleman puts on what my right hon. Friend is doing. I shall call my right hon. Friend's attention to the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

Mr. Sheldon: Will the Leader of the House look again at the question of a two-day debate on public expenditure? He must be aware that what was debated in the autumn was quite outside the scope of the debate that had been promised and that it was accepted in the past that the debate was for a review of public expenditure, not the particular cuts that we discussed then. If we are to spend, as we do, 15 days or more on questions of how we raise money, the least we can do is to spend two days in the House discussing how we spend it.

Mr. Whitelaw: I note what the hon. Gentleman says. I was merely restating what I said in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) during the discussions on the Green Paper on Select Committees in the autumn. If the hon. Gentleman looks at HANSARD I think that he will find that that is what I said then.

Mr. Sheldon: We do not like it.

Mr. Whitelaw: I accept that, and I am prepared to consider what has been said. I was merely repeating what I had said.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR MONDAY 8TH FEBRUARY

Members successful in the Ballot were:

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie.
Mr. Julian Ridsdale.
Mr. William Shelton.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: I beg to give notice that on 8th February I shall draw attention to the position of old age pensioners and move a Motion.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Motion made, and Question proposed:
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock and, in the case of the Question which under the provisions of paragraphs (6) and (9) of Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply) Mr. Speaker is directed to put forthwith at Ten o'clock, he shall this day put such Question forthwith as soon as the House has entered upon the Business of Supply.—[Mr. Goodhew.]

4.40 p.m.

Mr. James Wellbeloved: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is this Motion debatable or must it be put formally? May I ask whether any of the Motions on the Order Paper before the Motion on the Adjournment are debatable?

Mr. Speaker: This Motion is debatable.

Mr. Wellbeloved: If that is the case, I should like to debate it, because I believe that it would he wrong for the House to facilitate the Government in the passage of any of their business in view of the situation which has now developed of a deliberate attempt by the Government to suppress the rights of this House to debate its business and to maintain the principle of free speech in Parliament.
The proposal by the Government to impose a timetable on the Industrial Relations Bill is of such serious consequence that I believe it essential that this Motion be debated. The Motion before the House is a Motion to facilitate the passage of the Government's business for today. I hope that we will be in order, in debating it, in going a little wider and explaining to you and to the House the reason why we feel that the Government should not be facilitated in this manner.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. Debate on a Motion of this sort is very narrow and must be directed solely to today's business.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I will attempt to direct my remarks to today's business, which includes, I submit, the statement made by the Leader of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I will clarify what I have said. The debate must be related to the business still to come before the House.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I will attempt to relate my remarks to the business that is still to come before the House. One of the Motions yet to come before the House is the Motion for the Adjournment, and while I appreciate that many right hon. and hon. Members wish to debate the Common Market on that Motion, I do not believe that it would be right for us to agree to this Motion in order to facilitate the Government's business so that the Motion for the Adjournment may be reached.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) not wrong and are you not perhaps in the position, unintentionally, of also being wrong in this case? Surely, on the Motion for the Adjournment, any matter except legislation can be discussed, so that when we reach the Motion for the Adjournment any hon. Member can raise the statement of the Leader of the House and mention the Industrial Relations Bill, but without its legislative effects? Can we not discuss anything on the Motion for the Adjournment, whether it be to do with the Common Market or not? I would not want it to be thought that, inadvertently, you were supporting the point which my hon. Friend is putting.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) for the way in which he put his point of order. I hope that I did not, advertently or inadvertently, fall into error. Within limits, the hon. Gentleman is right. The debate on the Adjournment Motion is a wide debate.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I return to the Motion on the business of Supply. I emphasise to my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis), who wants a general debate on the Adjournment, that many of us believe that the suppression of free speech proposed by the Government is of such fundamental importance—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question of suppression of free speech is not relevant to this Motion. It is a Motion about today's business—as to whether we should conduct certain business after certain hours and whether we should proceed with the business of Supply forthwith


and then get on to the debate on the Common Market.

Mr. Wellbeloved: It is to that point that I want to direct my remarks. If the Government are asking the House, by this Motion, to facilitate the discharge of their business after 10 o'clock, in view of their new proposal to suppress free speech they cannot expect hon. Members on this side of the House concerned with the defence of the liberties of the people of the realm to facilitate them in such matters. I hope that the trend of my remarks will be in order.
If we are to be subjected to this denial of fundamental freedom, if the Government are going, for the first time, I understand, in the history of guillotine Motions, to impose a limit on debates on fundamental matters, such as establishing new courts which will deal with vital aspects of our industrial relations and our freedom, I believe that it is completely beyond any possibility that we can co-operate in any way with the Government on that or any other Measures they present to the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must call the hon. Gentleman to order. He is not entitled to enter into any general observations of any kind in debating this Motion.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I take it that I am in order in opposing the Motion, which is to facilitate the business of the Government.

Mr. Speaker: That is the dangerous nature of the argument in which the hon. Gentleman is engaging. In fact, the Motion is not to facilitate the business of the Government. It deals with today's business in order to arrange for a debate on the Common Market to take place.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): Perhaps I can make the situation clear. I think that the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) is being fair, but in fact the Opposition themselves have decided to devote this Supply Day to the Common Market debate, and this Motion is to facilitate the business on which the Opposition have their rights on a Supply Day.

Mr. Wellbeloved: I take it that this Motion does facilitate the other Motions on the Order Paper which will come after the Adjournment debate on the Common Market, such as the Motions on the Guardianship of Minors Bill and Standing Order No. 18. Is that not the case? I would still press my point unless you ask me to resume my seat, Mr. Speaker, because we are dealing with some vital constitutional matters. The Leader of the House has frequently told us that he takes very seriously his responsibilities to all hon. Members. He has today betrayed that pledge.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not pursue that line of argument. It must be limited to the question as to why the Opposition wish that the conduct of today's business should not be facilitated.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock and, in the case of the Question which under the provisions of paragraphs (6) and (9) of Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply) Mr. Speaker is directed to put forthwith at Ten o'clock, he shall this day put such Question forthwith as soon as the House has entered upon the Business of Supply.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[9TH ALLOTTED DAY], considered.

Orders of the Day — CIVIL AND DEFENCE SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES

Mr. SPEAKER, proceeded, pursuant to the Order this day, to put forthwith the Question,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £296,822,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March, 1971, for expenditure in respect of the Civil and Defence Supplementary Estimates of which notice has been given in pursuance of paragraph (9) of Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).

Question agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the foregoing Resolution and upon the Resolution of 5th November relating to the Civil Estimates 1971–72 (Vote on Account), by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Patrick Jenkin.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND

Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31st March, 1971 and 1972, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 88.]

Orders of the Day — EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Goodhew.]

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: A few moments ago my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) was kind enough to apologise to me for holding up this debate. I say to him that there was no need for him to apologise to me. The Government have shown an unfailing lack of parliamentary instinct in providing the worst possible preface to what I imagine they would like to be a debate of calm reflection on the issue to be discussed.
I am bound to begin by drawing attention to another matter on which it seems to me the Government are not showing the respect to the House which they should show. I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not taking part in this debate. The right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Hugh Fraser) made this point yesterday, and I agree with him. I think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have taken part. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) dealt a great deal with monetary questions and I propose to do the same today. These matters are of great impact, and are recognised as being of great impact, upon the central issue we are discussing. We should have had the Chancellor of the Exchequer's views upon them. We should have had his views upon the economic gains on the one hand and the disadvantages, on the other, which seem to him as likely to follow from our membership of the European Economic Community.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: At least he should have been here.

Mr. Jenkins: I do not always agree with my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) but I do so on this occasion. I think that the least the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have done was to be present. We have not heard from him on this subject since he took his present office. It will be within the recollection of many right hon. and hon. Members


that, 11 months ago, when we had a rather similar two-day debate, although we were then nearer to the period of Budget purdah, I, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, intervened on the second day and gave the House the views of the then Government on the economic aspects largely as we then saw them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been extremely sparing in his appearances in the House. He has not made a speech in the House since 4th November, and I do not think that he should rest too long upon his laurels on that occasion.
Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster gave us some account of the negotiations so far and the prospect as he sees it. I make it clear from the beginning that I do not propose to follow him in much detail on this point. I do not, indeed, think it right for an Opposition spokesman to take up a particular position in regard to the negotiations while they are in mid-stream. The Government, inevitably and rightly, have the responsibiity for conducting the negotiations. They must bring them, if they can bring them to fruition, in their complete form to the House and then we must all make our judgment about what they have achieved as a whole. To attempt partial judgment of the negotiations in the meantime would mean, first, that we were in danger of not seeing the matter in the round, and, secondly, in danger of jogging the negotiator's arm, which I do not wish to do. There are, however, two points which I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman should bear constantly in mind.
First, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has the advantage of being able to negotiate from a very strong balance of payments position. The outturn for 1970 as a whole, and in particular the last quarter, leaves no room for doubt about that. The June remarks of the Prime Minister about a deteriorating trend have been shown to be utterly without foundation, and he is a very lucky man to have his forecast falsified on such a remarkably convenient time scale. To be able to preach weakness before the election and then to inherit strength after it is a position of singular good fortune. But such is undoubtedly the case.
The year as a whole from the balance of payments point of view was our best

ever, and the second half was better than the first. This means that we are able to negotiate from a much stronger position than was the case in 1961–63 or would have been the case had we got to negotiations in 1967. It means that, provided the Government do not dissipate the surplus they have inherited, we can hope to enter the Community in a position of much greater economic strength than would have been previously the case and thus be able to take a fuller and more consistent advantage of the stimulus to growth which I firmly believe this can bring—although I acknowledge, as I always have, that this is not a matter subject to absolute proof. It is not by its very nature, but nor are many of the other most important matters on which in human affairs we have to make judgments. They are not subject to absolute truth; they are subject to judgment, as is the case here.
The primary object of the right hon. and learned Gentleman in the negotiations should be to preserve that strength and to avoid terms which would bring us back to a position of weakness and so prevent our getting the extra growth, quite limited amounts of which will enable us to pay reasonable contributions without feeling the burden severely.
Secondly, he should constantly bear in mind that, although we can gain a great deal from entry and shall miss many opportunities if we fail to secure it on good terms, the Six will also lose a great deal if they fail again to ease our entry. The two vetoes which have so far been applied have caused a continuing and debilitating split within the Europe of the Community. The ideals and plans for the future which came from the prophets of the European idea were not related to arrangements between a particular exclusive group of Powers. They offered a new way in which to learn from the bitterness and the frustration of the war years, one way of transcending the restrictions of national sovereignty.
But once these new methods had been opened up, these new prospects had been given, they could not be limited only to six countries without undermining their basis. One cannot convincingly say that full national sovereignty is outdated and yet refuse to allow more than a limited number of countries to escape from its confines. One cannot claim that Europe


can solve its problems only on a European basis and yet insist that European countries, and we are undoubtedly a European country, anxious to join should not be allowed to make a full contribution.
This has been a major weakness of the Community since 1963, and it will remain so until the question of the candidate members, ourselves and the other three, is settled. It is not a problem which will just go away from the door of the Six. Only our entry can settle this divisive issue which in the past seven years has done a great deal to tarnish the image and weaken the momentum of the Community.
If we were to be kept out again, it could endanger the whole future of the Community. Some hon. Members may say, "And a good thing too", but I think that that would be a very shortsighted view. We in this country, and indeed the whole world, have suffered far too much in the past from the divisions of Europe, and in particular the division between France and Germany, for any sensible person to want to see them recreated.
Our entry is therefore likely to assist the development of a better balance in the Atlantic community as a whole than has hitherto been possible. Reasons both of history and geography unite in ensuring that Britain would always want to see a Europe of which it was a member joined by close and friendly links with the United States. There are very few in Britain who would want to abolish the Channel at the price of making the Atlantic into an unbridgeable chasm.
But our rôle here requires careful definition. If we see it as that of standing outside Europe and trying from a mid-Atlantic position, as a sort of enlarged Iceland, to act as an intermediary between Europe and the United States, we are likely to end in rather foolish failure. But if we see our rôle as being fully part of Europe, but a part which, because of our tradition and outlook, is likely always to want to keep European unity fully compatible with links across the Atlantic, we will better serve both our own needs and the North Atlantic community as a whole.
Furthermore, the best basis, I am convinced, for a close continuing North Atlantic relationship is the nearest approach to equality which is possible between the European partners on the one hand and the American on the other, a closer approach to equality than has been possible so far in the Europe of the Alliance. This is far more likely to be achieved by a Europe of which Britain is a part than one from which Britain is excluded. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, therefore, has a strong hand to play, but I hope that he will play it in the negotiations with firmness, but without bombast.
I turn next to the monetary questions about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Cheetham said some words yesterday when he threatened the House that I would say even more today. I am not sure whether that will be so, but I should like to fill in one or two aspects of the matter around his words of yesterday.
During the past few months, the Werner Report and associated developments have focussed attention on the likely monetary future of the Community. There has been a considerable tendency to exaggerate the significance of what has taken place so far and even to speak as though the formation of a full monetary Community with a common currency was just around the corner. I believe that there are many difficulties to be overcome before there can be any real question of achieving this, and, indeed, the degree of enthusiasm of the Governments of the Six for rapid moves in this direction can easily be exaggerated.
There are two practical questions for the foreseeable future. The first, although that of lesser importance, is the plan for narrower exchange rate margins between the countries of the Community. I see no great difficulty about this. The present position is somewhat anomalous. Under the rules of the International Monetary Fund, drawn up, of course, well before the Community existed, the currency of any member of the Community may fluctuate against that of another member by twice as much as either may fluctuate against the dollar. This greater degree of flexibility against a partner's currency than against one outside the Community, even if in both


cases it is very limited, is difficult to defend.
At the I.M.F. meeting before last, 16 months ago, I suggested, although I did not regard the matter as of primary importance, a widening of the margins from the present 1 per cent. to perhaps 2 per cent. This would not necessarily be incompatible with a move towards narrower margins within the Community itself. For most countries, certainly for this country, it is the rate against the dollar as the anchor currency which is important for exchange market management, not the cross rates against another European currency. On this issue, therefore, while the importance can be exaggerated, certainly the difficulties can be, too.
The second and more important practical question is whether from here forward substantial changes of parity between the currencies of the members of the Community should be ruled out. I am not now talking about fluctuations within the margins, devaluations and revaluations, substantial changes of parity. At the present stage of integration, or at any stage which is likely to be reached in the early future, such a point would be highly theoretical. No doubt it is important to avoid frequent or numerous parity changes within the Community. No doubt they make the working of certain aspects of the Community more difficult. Indeed, before the French devaluation and the German revaluation of 1969 we were told with considerable authority that the financial provisions of the common agricultural policy were an unsurmountable obstacle to such changes within the Community. In practice, the unsurmountable obstacle proved little more than a molehill.
When the parity changes became highly necessary in the national interests of the countries concerned, this argument, like others, was not allowed to stand in the way. It is often a mistake in evolving human affairs to attempt too rigid a division between the past and the future, between what has in fact occurred and what we will allow to occur in the future. But the fact that the main parity changes in the whole developed world of the past 18 months have been a movement in opposite directions of the two major currencies of the Community itself should make both those within the Community

and those interested in joining very cautious about attempting to lay down a too rigid position for the future. What happened on a dramatic scale in 1969 would be inconceivable and inadmissible in the 1970's. When parity changes become necessary, they will eventually take place whatever the theoretical position may be, and therefore the Community would be very unwise to try to create a theoretical position which could not be sustained, and I believe that that is indeed what will happen.
Having said that, however, I should like to stress the undesirability from the point of view of Britain and Europe and, indeed, of the whole world, of trying to exclude monetary questions from the development of the Community, or trying to believe that all we have to do is to maintain the monetary status quo. There is a long-term deep-seated monetary imbalance in the world. Since September, 1969, it has not given much trouble, because we have all been temporarily in calm waters. But it created a great deal of trouble in the two years before that and it could in the future present us with still more severe difficulties than anything we have yet known.
This imbalance, in my view, stems from the fact that the rôles of the two—I stress the "two"—traditional reserve currencies of the world are now out of joint with the balance of world economic power which has developed over the past 20 years. After the war, there were two major trading and reserve currencies: the dollar, clearly in practice, and, indeed, in theory, as the result of Bretton Woods, the primary one, but sterling a very important secondary one.
Throughout the whole of the post-war period, the rôle of sterling has been excessive in relation to the size of the United Kingdom economy. It has been balanced, not unlike an inverted pyramid, upon the narrow base of an economy with only 50 million inhabitants. This has meant that sterling has been in the firing line without much protection in every world monetary crisis. It has meant that the United Kingdom, under successive Governments, has been somewhat top-heavy in monetary matters. It made it far more difficult for us to carry out our devaluation with the same sudden, silent decisiveness which the French achieved


in August, 1969. There were too many people who had to be told beforehand.
To some extent, the position has gradually but belatedly been eased for us by a substantial relative decline in both the reserve and trading positions of sterling. But it has still not been adequately eased for us, and moreover the method by which easement has been brought about has created more problems for the world monetary system as a whole, for the easement has been achieved, in so far as it has been achieved, by the dollar, as the pivot of the whole system, taking on still greater burdens.
In the early post-war days of clear United States economic and competitive preponderance, with the massive U.S. trade surpluses which went with that, the dollar might have carried this additional burden. But those circumstances no longer apply. The position, therefore, is that sterling, although carrying a progressively smaller burden, is still overstrained, and the dollar, carrying a progressively larger burden, is now overstrained too. The missing piece of the jigsaw is that the prosperous, rapidly-growing and reserve-rich economies of Western Europe carry very little reserve currency responsibility. I do not reproach them for that. The present position is largely an accident of history, but it is one which I believe to be bad for the world monetary system and one which should be corrected as soon as is practicable.
This should be and could be, done either by moving towards a European-based second world reserve currency or by endeavouring to persuade the I.M.F. to take on the burden of providing reserve assets which could maintain and extend world liquidity, in due course perhaps replacing the dollar as the pivot of the whole system. But in either event, the countries of the Community must be prepared, whether directly or indirectly, to take on more responsibility. Only thus can the excessive and potentially dangerous strain upon the dollar be removed. Only thus can the world monetary system be given more stability.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Cheetham said yesterday, there can be no question of repudiating our liabilities, but we ought certainly to be willing, and in my view anxious, to abandon the special position of sterling and see it

merged in the new reserve asset or currency, whichever it may be. The result could be a much more balanced and sensible system for the world as a whole.
The developments here will not be directly involved in the negotiations in which the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is engaged, but they will provide an important chorus of noises offstage. But the Government, and that goes for the other Chancellor as well, ought to have a clear idea of the direction in which they wish to move on this important issue.
I am bound to conclude that section of my speech by expressing again my great regret—indeed, my great surprise—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not thought it fit to turn up at the House even to listen to the discussion this afternoon.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: The House has listened with great interest to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but before he leaves the question of the position of sterling could he elaborate what seems to be the great difficulty in dealing with the problem, that what were described as the privileges of sterling in fact involved liabilities, which the Community might be very reluctant to take on?

Mr. Jenkins: I have dealt with this matter as far as it would be reasonable to do so in a speech of this sort. I did not directly suggest that the only solution was the Community taking them on. I have said that we do not want to get out of our liabilities, but we want a more sensible situation for the future. There are two possibilities: one is through the Community, and one is through the I.M.F. The I.M.F. only has strength through its members, and the prominent member, the United States, is already taking as much strain as it can. Therefore one comes back to the ability of the Community, whether directly or indirectly to take on more responsibility.
I think it would be the view of the House that I have probably gone into that subject with as much detail as hon. Members would wish, and rather than proceed further I shall leave the matter there.
I turn now to a quite separate issue, the argument about sovereignty. In recent months there has been a certain


shift here in the lines of argument. Previously those opposed to our entry laid by far the greater stress on the economic points, and it was those in favour of entry mostly, and I think generally—

Mr. Neil Marten: No.

Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Gentleman may be an exception. He is a distinguished exponent of the view that we should not go into Europe. He can refute it later if he wishes. I think that it is the view of the House that what I have said on that particular issue is broadly correct—[Interruption.]—of course, it is not the view of everybody. I recollect that in most recent debates going back over the past three or four years, those who have been very sceptical about entry laid their previous stress mainly upon the economic argument. However, let me hasten to assure the House that this is a comment I make by way of passing, and I propose to raise no great argument upon it. If I had thought that it would provoke dissent, I probably would not have bothered to make it.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Would my right hon. Friend agree that there have been occasions when he has made some severe comments on the economic argument? Does he recall that he has used some very harsh words about the common agricultural policy of the E.E.C. and does he still hold to that viewpoint? Does he recall also his speech at Aberystwyth on the value-added tax, and does he still feel as he did then about it?

Mr. Jenkins: It is impossible to feel in this House as one feels in Aberystwyth. Leaving that point aside, certainly I have no wish to alter anything that I said there or anything that I have said elsewhere on these matters. It is the case that the common agricultural policy is the least attractive face of the Community. I believe that to be so.
On the whole, I have believed that the political arguments were even more in favour of entry than the economic arguments. Though, on balance, I have believed that there is a strong economic case, I have endeavoured to see the balance of the arguments one way and another, and I have perhaps been more willing to admit some of the points against entry than my hon. Friend has some of the points in favour.

Mr. Peter Mills: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jenkins: No. At the moment, I am being interrupted in my argument, which shows the danger of putting in points by way of transition to a new point. I am being interrupted on a point which is in no way central to my argument. I want now to proceed to points which are central to my argument and on which, within reason, I will be prepared to give way again.
What is clearly the case is that, whatever is true or untrue about the past, those who are now against entry are increasingly taking the political point and saying that entry will involve the loss of our national identity, which is what the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) argues, a loss of our ability to control our own destiny, and will necessarily mean a short, sharp ride to a federal Europe.
This argument is severely distorted at both ends. First, I believe it to be based on a misunderstanding of the problem of the exercise of sovereignty in the modern world. It greatly overestimates our ability to control our own destiny in or out of the Community, and it endeavours to make a false equation between detachment and independence. To pretend to a sovereignty which has ceased to be effective is to restrict and not to preserve national freedom.
I take first the example of defence. For almost any country, certainly for any power of the second or third rank to attempt today to provide exclusively for its own defence needs would mean either that it was wholly dependent on the whims of its neighbours to attack or defend it as they wished, or that it accepted a crippling and still probably ineffective burden which in turn greatly reduced its freedom to do other things such as improving the standard of living of its people and providing a good level of community services. Participation in a mutual defence arrangement, even with tight guarantees and a high degree of military integration, is thus likely to increase rather than diminish the country's ability to develop as it wishes.
Equally, in terms of the economy, to be shut out of the main groups which determine the world's economic climate does not mean exemption from the effects


of that climate, but merely a loss of influence in determining the climate and less strength with which to withstand its rigours.
Economic influence in turn greatly affects political influence, and this can only be exerted effectively when a nation has found a satisfactory political orientation and is not forced by the search for one to attempt military tasks beyond its real economic capacity with the almost inevitable consequences of reducing that capacity still further and thus producing a minimum amount of influence for a maximum amount of effort. For any medium-rank Power today a willingness to pool sovereignty is thus an essential prerequisite for both influence and, in a paradoxical but real sense, national freedom.
I turn now to the federalist point. Some argue as though an anti-federalist Britain would be sucked into a federalist whirlpool immediately that we set foot in the Community. Almost exactly the reverse is the case. It may be a good thing or a bad thing, but I do not believe that, even if in this country we were unanimously for federalism, which we most certainly are not, we could get the rest of Europe with us in the lifetime of most Members of this House. The forces of inertia are always much stronger than the forces of action. In any event, it is towards confederation and not federation that even the limited forces of action are now working. I believe that that is the almost unanimous view of those who look at the Six through the spectacles of realism and not through those of either utopianism or scaremongering.
Opponents of entry then say, "If Europe has not enough faith in its own purposes to become quickly federalist, what is the point in the venture at all?" That is to see the evolving institution in far too rigid, black and white terms. It is a false antithesis to argue that, because it is unlikely and even undesirable for complete integration to be achieved in the foreseeable future, it therefore follows that nothing is worth going for.
Europe has travelled a substantial distance in the past 12 years. It would be much easier for us today and much better for the Six, too, if we had been with them from the beginning. That aside, the hard fact is that in none of the six countries,

throughout the spectrum of democratic political opinion, is there any substantial organised body of people who wish that they were out rather than in, who wish that the Treaty of Rome had never been signed, who believe that they have not achieved any real benefits from it.
I put this point particularly to some of my hon. Friends: recently a Norwegian trade union and Labour Party delegation under the leader of the party went round the Six. Like ourselves, the Norwegians are candidate members. Still more than ourselves, they are peripheral to the core of Europe. They are perhaps not notable for their integrationist ideas. Yet they were deeply impressed by the very facts that I have just mentioned, especially as they apply to the Socialist and trade union movements in the Six. They met no one who wished to come out. They met no one who did not believe that substantial benefits had been achieved from being in. They found, too, that everyone with whom they talked was more worried about progress in the future being too slow than too fast.
Some may be inclined to answer, "That is all very well for the Six. No doubt it benefits them, but it would not benefit us. We are not as other Europeans are." With respect, that I believe to be one of the worst, most dangerous and most unacceptable of all the arguments against entry. It has lain behind far too much of our thinking in this country since the war.
We have believed, against the increasing evidence of the facts, that we were different, better, more independent and more able to manage on our own than were our neighbours. Of course, in some senses we are different, as every European country is different from every other, and none has found any difficulty in preserving its identity. But, if we believe that we are different in a qualitative sense, that we have a different and separate rôle in the world, that we can remain as semi-detached from Europe as can the Americans, then I fear that at the end of the day the real difference will turn out to be that the countries of the Community have gone way ahead, have adjusted themselves both more realistically and more imaginatively to both the harshness and the opportunity of the modern world and that they have achieved more than we have done in


influence, standard of living, social services and in help for developing areas too, and that we have increasingly been left behind.
I do not believe that this need happen, but it certainly could. To help avoid this we must hope for a successful outcome of this third and crucial attempt at negotiation. That places a responsibility upon both sides, both upon us in this country to look beyond narrow horizons and upon the Six to show that they have the cohesion and self-confidence necessary to allow enlargement to take place on tolerable terms, without which the Community can neither achieve its full strength nor remain faithful to its original European idealism.

5.22 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Prior): The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) has over the last 10 years made a number of speeches in this House on the Common Market. Those of us who have been privileged to listen to them know that he has never made a bad speech on this subject, and even from those who have perhaps not found themselves in agreement with him he has gained a great deal of respect in all that he has said. Certainly today his remarks on monetary policy and sovereignty have been extremely helpful to my right hon. Friend who has to carry out the negotiations.
Yesterday's debate lived up to the high standard of Common Market debates over the years. The speeches of the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) were up to their usual high standard. Perhaps some of the fire of the debates of previous times has gone, but it would not do to draw too many conclusions from the lack of emotion that the debates now arouse.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the pattern has changed. Some hon. Members may not agree with this, but the debates of 1961 to 1963 were much more concerned with economics, agriculture and Commonwealth than with sovereignty and food prices, which now dominate one's thinking. I say this only because events here and in the Common Market have not stood still. The prob-

lems have changed, and will go on changing, for the Six, for the Four and for the Ten. A mistake we sometimes make is to look at a possible situation in 1978 through the static position of 1971. When I come to be as specific and detailed as I can about my responsibilities I hope that this factor will be remembered.
A great deal has been said about sovereignty. One either agrees that France and the other countries, including West Germany, with the Ostpolitik, have found the Common Market no bar to their aims of following national policy, or one argues that, as the years have rolled on, we have had or will have less control over our own destinies, and that this is true of the Community. Whichever way one argues, and perhaps both arguments are true in part, it cannot be said on the evidence available that the anxiety of certain hon. Gentlemen has been borne out. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that progress towards complete integration is bound to be extremely slow. On economic sovereignty, which was mentioned yesterday by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. H. Lever), it is very much a question of what we hope to achieve. If one were to ask the average British person whether he would rather have 2s. in his pocket with our present economic sovereignty or 4s. without it, I have no doubt what answer he would give.
The common agricultural policy has been the centrepiece for community institutions. This is certainly where one would expect to see the greatest pooling of sovereignty, and it is by far the most advanced project in the Community. Even here, there are still, and will remain for many years, great national divergences. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned this in talking about parity and the effect that changes in currency rates would have on common agricultural policy, but it has not happened. The arguments on sovereignty are by no means made out to our disadvantage.
I wish to present to the House this afternoon as much information as I can about the state of the negotiations and their effect upon us. There are limitations on what one can say, as the policies of the Community are not standing still—nor are our own. Detailed paints have


to be left undecided but general positions have to be established. I apologise in advance for some of the detail contained in my speech, but I believe that it is the wish of the House that the country should be fully informed. It is also essential to build up the confidence of farmers, horticulturists, fishermen, food processers and, perhaps most important of all, housewives, in what we are trying to do.
I will start, therefore, with food prices. It is important here to put the facts clearly and simply but without exaggeration. Our entry into the E.E.C. would, of course, entail some increase in food prices. That is inevitable, given that we should be changing to a different system, and has been accepted by successive Governments on both sides of the House. It is important to get this in perspective.
First, as to the likely amount of the rise, an estimate was made in the White Paper published last February which suggested that overall the retail food price index might, as a result of our accession, be 18 to 26 per cent. higher than it otherwise would have been. It is this that frightens people, but this increase would not take place immediately on our accession. We have proposed in Brussels that our agricultural prices should be raised to Community levels by six steps spread over a full five-year period. This would mean that the retail food prices would on average go up by about 3 to 4 per cent. a year. This would represent an increase in the general index of retail prices of no more than about 1 per cent. a year, since food is about 25 per cent. of the total weighting. No one should seek to under-estimate what this means—nor to exaggerate it. Any estimate of this sort has to be based on certain assumptions, and these were also set out in the White Paper. Since the figures which I have quoted were published, there have been two developments which are tending to reduce the size of the increase which we would face on entry.
The first is that over the past year world prices for food have risen significantly for certain important basic commodities—by about 7 per cent. This has in turn raised our consumer prices, and this means that the gap to be bridged between our prices and E.E.C. prices has

to this extent diminished. World prices have risen, but E.E.C. food prices have been largely stable.
Secondly, there are two further elements of which we have to take account. Food prices in the E.E.C. are higher, partly because the E.E.C. pays the farmer higher prices for most commodities and partly because of the different method of support for agriculture. So we have to take account of the effect of the Government's policy of changing our system of agricultural support from one relying predominantly on deficiency payments to one in which the farmer gets his return from the market. If the negotiations succeed, on any reasonable assumption we can expect to have gone a good way by the time we actually join in moving the main means of our support from deficiency payment to the market. To the extent that we have done this, we shall further reduce the increase in prices arising from our accession.
So far I have spoken only in general terms. Not all prices will be going up. Fruit and vegetables, which account for about 20 per cent. of the housewife's expenditure on food, will in some cases be cheaper and in other cases remain the same. Even where prices rise, it is nonsense to suggest as I have seen suggested recently, that the people of the E.E.C. are an undernourished community, and that if we join there will be a massive switch in our diet towards bread and potatoes. It is important to remember—

Mr. Marten: Who said it?

Mr. Prior: It was said by Professor Zinkin and reported fully last week in the Daily Express.

Mr. Marten: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Professor Zinkin is a great pro-Common Marketeer?

Mr. Prior: I have been asked who said it, and I have told my hon. Friend. It is important to remember that the speed at which price rises occur is as important as the size of the increase in determining the effect on the market and the consumer. The intention will be to phase in the rise in food prices in an orderly way in the transitional period while we are experiencing the steadily increasing wider benefits of membership.
Retail prices and patterns of consumption vary within the Community, but it is


surely significant in this context that, for example, the French and the Germans consume per head marginally larger amounts of meat and cheese than we do in this country, in spite of the higher prices which obtain there. The prices in the Common Market vary enormously from one country to the next, and it is quite impossible to talk of an overall average on this basis.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: During the last election, the Conservative Party promised, amongst other things, to reduce food prices—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
Assuming that was their intention, even if they wanted to reduce prices, under the Rome Treaty they would not be able to do so once these conditions are agreed.

Mr. Prior: The hon. Gentleman starts from a wrong assumption from which he tries to prove something else. At the last election we made it perfectly plain that it was our intention to negotiate to join the Common Market and that we would change the agricultural system of support to the levy system. There was no indication that we would reduce food prices. If we go into the Common Market we shall have to accept the rules, and this is the argument which has been going on for the last day and a half.

Mr. John Farr: My right hon. Friend said just now that those in the E.E.C. at the moment marginally consume more meat and cheese than we do. Would he not be fair and say that a good proportion of that meat is horsemeat and bears no comparison to what we eat in this country?

Mr. Prior: Perhaps I do not go round the Continent as often as my hon. Friend, but when there I do not see large numbers of horses being reared to be consumed as horsemeat. The fact is that their standard of living and their eating habits are not all that different from our own. It is also significant that, as a nation grows richer, so the percentage that it spends on food tends to fall.
To turn to the food industries and get away from food prices for a moment, the effect of higher prices for basic agricultural commodities is a matter of concern not only to the housewife but also to the food manufacturers. I know that worries have been expressed by some of our food

manufacturers and trades about the possible effects on consumption in the home market of higher prices for their products. This matter again needs to be kept in perspective, bearing in mind that these higher prices would be phased in slowly and that as time goes on we should increasingly be experiencing the benefits of accession.
It is not just a question of the effects on the United Kingdom market. The progressive removal of barriers within the Community will offer considerable new opportunities to British food manufacturers and the trade. To exploit these will call for energy and enterprise, and perhaps some adjustments, but I am confident that British food industries, which are among the leaders in their field in efficiency and innovation, will respond.
As the debate is getting very much behind time, I will leave out of my speech the sections aimed at dealing with the regulations concerning the food industry. The point I would like to make on them is that these regulations are for the main part in draft and seek to cover the Common Market countries as they are now, their eating habits, their different requirements for hygiene. But they will have to take into consideration the changes which the accession of Britain and other countries would bring.
It is worth remembering that when one is eating in Rome one does not necessarily eat the same food as one would eat in Paris, Brussels or London—even in the case of horsemeat. There is plenty of scope for a wide range of regulations which will still allow our industry to compete.
To turn to the agricultural problems—

Mr. John Mendelson: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the important subject of food prices, in which of course the public are interested, he said that the jump will not be so great when the transitional period is over because he will have introduced successive increases in food prices by changing the methods and by making the market compete more. Is he not hiding the fact that the earlier he changes the methods, the less the jump will be? The full impact and brunt will still have to be borne by the British housewife.

Mr. Prior: I did not say that at the end of the period of transition there would be a jump, but in so far as changes are made before the transition period begins, the hon. Gentleman is correct in his assumption. But at the moment our plans are to do no more than stabilise prices at or about their present level.
I have never felt that agriculture represented a major problem. I did not think that it did in 1961, and my opinion is now more strongly held than it was even at that time. The reason that it has always been cited as a major problem is much more because of the financial and balance of payments implications attendent upon the acceptance of the common agricultural policy and its guarantee and guidance fund. The whole structure of the industry, the scale of our enterprise, the scale of our farmers and their grasp of the modern technologies, leave me in no doubt that the industry has nothing to fear and much to gain. But, of course, our entry will cause changes and require adjustments.
We have said that we are prepared to adopt the common agricultural policy, subject to a number of points mentioned at the beginning of negotiations. A number of those points have now been dealt with and, since I have been asked a number of questions by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, I will try to answer as completely and as shortly as I can.
On liquid milk, our discussions with the Community have established first that it is an objective of the common policy to use as much milk as possible for liquid consumption throughout the Community and that the policy should not be applied so as to impede this aim. This is a change from what we had before.
Secondly, we have established that member States are free to fix retail prices for milk but are not obliged to do so, so that there need be no fixed differential between the prices paid for liquid milk and for milk sent for processing. Thirdly, a non-Governmental producer organisation, provided that it acts within the provisions of the Treaty and secondary legislation deriving from it, may engage in the direction of supplies, the pooling of returns and seasonal pricing. Thus our understanding is that the milk marketing board as a non-Governmental producer

organisation will be able to continue the essential features of our present milk marketing arrangements. Likewise, we believe that the other marketing boards will continue to play an important rôle in efficient production and marketing.
On the Annual Review, we have secured confirmation that we shall be free to conduct at national level our own review of the economic condition and prospects of the United Kingdom industry. In addition, it has been agreed that there will be an annual review of the economic conditions and prospects in the enlarged Community before price decisions are taken by the Council of Ministers. This review will be conducted by the Commission in consultation with member States. It will include effective and meaningful consultations with producer organisations.
We have secured an adequate agreement with the Community on this subject and we shall ensure that within the enlarged Community it is properly carried out. I regard it as a valuable agreement which should help to give United Kingdom producers confidence that their voice will be properly heard in the new and somewhat unfamiliar situation into which they will be moving after United Kingdom accession.

Mr. Eric Deakins: In view of what the Minister has just said, would he confirm an answer which he gave me in this House some time ago that the Annual Review in the United Kingdom would not be given statutory force, as would the present price review arrangements?

Mr. Prior: We must not get mixed up between the Annual Review and the price review that follows it, because they are different arrangements altogether. But so far as the Annual Review is concerned, as things stand we shall conduct such a review, but most people, and a good many farmers, feel that we want to move away from the Annual Review, in any event, in the form in which we have had it in the last few years.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Would it be correct to say that it would be an annual review but not an annual price review?

Mr. Prior: Broadly speaking, that would be correct because the prices have


to be fixed by the Council of Ministers after submissions put to them by the Commission.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Will Parliament have a right to hear it?

Mr. Prior: The answer is, "No". There is no burking the point. I will come to that point a little later. Obviously, the Community review of agriculture will not be exactly the same as the national review which we now hold.
As regards pigmeat and eggs, the application of the common agricultural policy would mean moving to a system where our producers get their returns from the Market rather than from subsidies. That is the direction in which we ourselves are already moving in regard to eggs, and I am sure that the efficiency of our producers is such that they will acquit themselves well in the new circumstances. But it will be important to achieve the transition smoothly and we thought it important to discuss with the Community the likely market conditions in an enlarged Community.
As a result of our discussions, the Community has recognised the value of continued stability for these commodities, the importance of and special characteristics of the United Kingdom bacon market in particular as an outlet for pigmeat in an enlarged Community and the need to keep this situation under careful review during the transitional period and afterwards. We shall be looking carefully at the future of the market sharing arrangement and the various other measures when we come to discuss the transitional arrangements after accession takes place.
The right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes) referred to the question of butter and cheese imports. This is, as he said, a very complex matter where precise forecasts are impossible. The enlarged Community would include our Irish and Danish suppliers. There must also be provision for New Zealand's exports to us. But so far as our market is concerned, the Community's support arrangements will ensure that British producers receive a fair, and increasing, level of returns for their milk products.
In negotiating the transitional arrangements, we shall see to it that they are not at a disadvantage as compared with competitors elsewhere in the Community.

Broadly, therefore, we have accepted the common agricultural policy. We have not done this because we think everything in it is perfect and cannot be improved.

Mr. Russell Kerr: You can say that again!

Mr. John Mendelson: The understatement of the year!

Mr. Prior: Perhaps hon. Members opposite would allow me to continue. Much needs to be done, as the Six know, to rectify these shortcomings.
Hon. Members criticise certain aspects of the common agriculture policy, often with justice. They question whether the level and pattern of agricultural prices is sensible. They point to the difficulties which the Community has faced over surpluses in the past. They ask why we have not tried to set these matters to rights in the negotiations for entry and fear that our only chance of doing so is being lost.
I do not agree. As members of the Community we shall have a full say in the development of the agricultural policy. We shall participate as full voting members in the year-to-year decisions on prices. We shall be able to influence the Community's policies on structural reforms in agriculture. We should, however, pay tribute to the efforts being made to reduce surpluses in the Common Market, to get production in balance and to improve structure. For example,. the mountains of dairy produce of which we have heard so much for years are fast disappearing.

Mr. John Mendelson: They are destroying them.

Mrs. Renée Short: They are feeding them to the cows.

Mr. Prior: Hon. Members opposite do not know their facts or they would not make these ridiculous statements. The hon. Member for Penistone will use any stick to beat the Common Market policy. And he is not too careful about which stick he uses and how he uses it.
The problem for British agriculture is one of making the transition rather than of accepting the principles of the common agricultural policy.
The important thing, which we have emphasised to the Six, is that the transition should be conducted in such a way as to allow United Kingdom producers to make the considerable adjustments which they will face as smoothly as possible so that we avoid unnecessary disruption to all concerned. This is important not only for us and for our consumers but also for the Six, who would not gain from disruption of the Common Market.

Mr. John Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Prior: The hon. Gentleman is always having his say.

Mr. Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. The hon. Member must resume his seat if the right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.

Mr. Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Let us be quite clear about this. When a right hon. or hon. Gentleman does not give way, no hon. Member is entitled to persist. If the right hon. Gentleman does not give way, the hon. Member must resume his seat. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to give way, he will do so and I shall call the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Mendelson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Prior: I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman. I have just attacked him, but, as I shall be attacking him once more before I finish my speech, perhaps he will wait and deal with both points together.
As I was saying, the important thing for British and Common Market producers is to make this transition smoothly. Regarding the length of the transition period, we have said that we are willing to adopt a single period of five years for both agriculture and industry. We believe that this would be an adequate length of time for agriculture, provided that there is provision for an adequate degree of flexibility. It would not be in the interests of any of the parties concerned to tie ourselves down to an exact programme for five years without providing any means to deal with unforeseen developments in our markets. Having

agreed the general principles of the transition, we shall expect to have reasonable room for manoeuvre to deal with any unforeseen difficulties or developments.
I should now like to turn to horticulture.

Mr. Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Prior: I shall be criticising the hon. Gentleman when I come to fishing, so he may rest assured.
On horticulture, which I have so far not mentioned, there are particular and special problems. The gradual reduction of our barriers to trade with members of the Community will expose some of our growers to much-increased competition. Prices for some fruit and vegetables in the E.E.C. have been considerably lower than here. This is well known, but the horticultural problem has to be seen in perspective.
Not by any means all of our industry will be at risk from the opening up of trade. Many growers will be able to stand the greater competition. Some will undoubtedly find new markets and new opportunities.
There has been considerable progress in our industry in the last few years. Under the series of the Horticultural Improvement Schemes and by the improvement of our wholesale horticultural markets, a great deal has been done to enable the industry to be more competitive.
Even in Cornwall last week—I will refer to the speech yesterday of my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks)—it was interesting to see the developments in flower bulb production compared with four or five years ago. One producer of flowers was exporting on quite a considerable scale to Germany. In view of this, I believe that a transitional period of five years will be long enough for those growers who are going to adapt and compete in the enlarged Community. To have sought a longer period would not have been realistic and could have damaged our chances of securing adequate provision for those who may be adversely affected.
The sectors of British horticulture which will face difficulties are chiefly those which suffer from climatic disadvantages—in particular, the growers of


apples and pears, where the Community has built up serious structural surpluses. But, here again, it cannot be in the interests of French and Italian producers to go on over-producing as they are now.
We have said to the Community that flexibility will be essential when we come to make the transition. The problem will be complicated, because, while most horticultural products are protected by tariffs, there are quotas for apples and pears. It is crucial to the well being of our industry that the existing forms of protection should be phased out smoothly and that market disruption should be avoided.
We have proposed to the Community that for products subject to tariffs, protection against the Community should be phased out in the following way. The first adjustment should not take place until after the first year of transition, which would be only 15 per cent., followed by annual moves of 15, 20, 25 and 25 per cent. For quotas we have proposed a gradual liberalisation during the transitional period. Above all, we have emphasised the need for flexibility and for avoiding disruption of markets. It simply would not be in the interests of those countries to flood our market and to undermine the good prices which they get here.
Ways must also be found of helping growers to adjust or, if necessary, to abandon their enterprises. I have already given the industry an assurance that this point will be sympathetically considered.

Mr. John Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Arthur Lewis: rose—

Mr. Prior: I will give way to the hon. Member for Penistone later.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. The Minister talks about abandoning the industry. Do I understand that the Government will assist in the abandonment of the industry? Is the right hon. Gentleman referring to the statement made by his Ministry that there must be a digging up and abolition of a number of acres of fruit? Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that we should destroy our fruit?

Mr. Prior: What I have said so far on the grubbing up of apple orchards, in

which I understand the hon. Gentleman is interested, is that, whether we go into the Common Market or not, there is a great deal of very bad produce in this country which undermines the market for good produce. It would be better to have those apple orchards out, and the Government would assist in a major scheme to get them out.

Mr. Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Prior: I ask the hon. Gentleman to wait.
On the other point raised by the hon. Member for West Ham, North, we shall consider what is necessary to help those producers who, through no fault of their own—horticulture is a long-term business—suffer as a result of accession. The Government are prepared to consider what should be done about that.

Mr. Mendelson: Concerning the destruction of butter, the right hon. Gentleman alleged that I did not know my facts. Is the Minister denying, as I told the House yesterday, that in November, 1970, the Commission in Brussels published an official communique announcing that it had spent 300 million dollars in the 12 months preceding November, 1970, destroying perfectly good butter and that it was proposing to spend another 300 million dollars from November, 1970, to November, 1971, for the same purpose, therefore showing no sign of abandoning its policy?

Mr. Prior: I understand that they do not destroy butter. They may have to underwrite cheap exports of butter to other countries.—[An HON. MEMBER:"That is dumping."]—Of course it is dumping. But the amount of surplus butter in the Common Market has already fallen from about 300,000 tons at its peak to about 100,000 tons now, and it is continuing to fall very considerably.

Mr. Mendelson: Then withdraw the charge of inaccuracy.

Mr. Prior: I will withdraw the charge of inaccuracy and say that I think that the hon. Gentleman's forecast about what is happening to dairy produce within the Common Market is totally inaccurate and leave it at that.

Mr. Marten: Will my right hon. Friend give way on this point?

Mr. Prior: No. I have given way many times. Other hon. Members badly want to get into the debate, so I am afraid that I shall not give way.
There are other matters still remaining for negotiation. There is the question of the aid which, in common with other members of the Community, we give to our hill farmers. Some people have been worried that the provisions of the Treaty of Rome would require us to discontinue our special aid for the hills and to destroy the economy of the hill areas.

Mr. John Wells: Assuming that my right hon. Friend has finished with horticulture, may I ask, first, whether he will give a categoric assurance that Cox's apples will be graded in the highest possible grade, therefore achieving a serious export potential? Secondly, will the Hops Marketing Board be able to continue in a similar style? Finally, will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that we shall not squander money on too many new wholesale markets, which should be suitably done at a reasonable price per sq. ft.?

Mr. Prior: On the question of Hops Marketing Board, I have said that producer marketing boards should have no trouble in doing their present jobs. On the matter of the grade of Cox's apples, I know that there is an important point here because of differences of colour and size, and we shall do all that we can in this regard. On the third point, that of wholesale arrangements, the amount of money available for the modernisation of wholesale markets is strictly limited in any case, but I am watching this very carefully.

Mr. Marten: What is happening about Australian apples? At the moment 47 per cent. of their production comes to the British housewife. Secondly, on the question of dumping, is my right hon. Friend aware that the Common Market surpluses of butter are being dumped in places like Hong Kong at very much below the production price, thus driving out the traditional supplier there, which is Australia? Does my right hon. Friend approve of that?

Mr. Prior: No. We have known that the Common Market countries have been dumping, but they are now beginning to get their surpluses well under control, and when that is done there will be no

need to dump. There is no doubt that they are getting their surpluses under control, and I must tell hon. Members that that is a fact.
On the matter of Australian apples, what will happen over a period of years is that these apples will bear the common external tariff which all goods coming into the United Kingdom or to the Common Market area will have to carry. What the Australians are concerned with is not so much what tariff their apples will have to bear but whether they will be able to market them here. If my geography is correct, I think that these are southern hemisphere apples which come here at a time of the year when the Common Market is not producing apples of its own, so I imagine that apple-growers in Australia will still find a ready market in this country.
I now turn to the problems of the hill-farmers, which to some hon. Members is an important matter. The right hon. Gentleman asked me to give a specific assurance about the future of the individual hill subsidies. I cannot guarantee anything specific about the future of the hill subsidies as such, any more than he would be able to commit irrevocably a future Labour Government to a guarantee of anything specific, and we all know why not. However, I appreciate the anxiety which prompts the right hon. Gentleman's questions and those of many other hon. Members.
The legal position under the Treaty of Rome is, of course, complex, and I shall not recite the details now. Briefly, the position is that there are no E.E.C. provisions which would specifically prohibit our grants to hill farmers or any other of our production grants, either. The Treaty contains a general prohibition on aids which distort competition and affect trade between member countries, but no agreed criteria have so far been laid down for applying this principle. However, the Treaty specifically provides for dealing with special problems of this sort and, indeed, member countries give aid in various forms to similar groups of producers with special problems.
As I have said, we shall be having discussions with the Community about the problems of the hill areas, but I assure hon. Members that the Government appreciate the importance to hill producers of the income support which they are


now receiving, and I do not believe that the Community would seek to press us to take a course which would seriously undermine the economy of the hill areas. There are also important points arising from the Community's directives on plant and animal health to be discussed with them in future negotiations.
I come now to fisheries, which I think is another important matter for many of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin, who made an excellent maiden speech yesterday. I can understand the anxieties which have been expressed about our inshore fisheries, and I assure the House that the Government have no intention of allowing our inshore waters to be raped. I must first emphasise that while it is regrettable that the Community should have chosen this moment to press on with the establishment of the common fisheries policy, in fact only its broad outlines have so far been settled. There are many points still to be clarified, and many details have still to be finalised, even in regard to the application of the policy to the Six themselves.
The Government have recently despatched a team of officials to Brussels with the specific purpose of seeking such clarification. Only when this has been received shall we be in a position to decide whether the existing regulations provide sufficiently for the protection of our inshore waters. In the meantime, our position is fully safeguarded, and we have brought firmly to the attention of the Community the importance of this matter for us both as a social and as an economic question. I think that until further clarification has been obtained it would be wise to wait and suspend judgment, but there is one general point which I think can fairly be made at this stage.
It is not in the interests of member countries that any of the waters to which they have access should be over-fished, as is clearly recognised by the provisions which the Six have made in their common fisheries policy for safeguards against the risk of over-exploitation. The Community as a whole can take measures to avoid such risks, quite apart from any measures which individual countries may take in the exercise of the extensive powers with which the common policy allows them to regulate their own waters. There is not, therefore, on this point any

clash of principle between ourselves and the Six. Our concern is simply to ensure proper protection in the particular circumstances of our own inshore waters. As I have already told the House, my right hon. and learned Friend and I have made abundantly plain to the Community the extreme importance which the Government and the House attach to satisfaction on this vital issue, and I believe that the Community is in no doubt about the strength of feeling here on this subject.
I have tried to deal as dispassionately as I can with the progress of the negotiations. I apologise to the House for the time that this has taken, and for the detail with which I have become involved, but these are largely technical points, and I think that the House, and certainly the country, will want to know what they are. So many people ask me why we want to join the Common Market.

Mr. Marten: Hear, hear.

Mr. Prior: I shall try to give my hon. Friend my answer to that question. It is surely and quite rightly because, I believe, as do many hon. Members, that there are great advantages for us in joining on the right terms. There are advantages to us in political terms, and therefore peace. There are advantages to us in economic terms, and therefore prosperity. Coupled with those would come the greater opportunities for the British to exercise their wisdom and experience in a wider community, and through a wider community outward to the rest of the world.
We have contributed much, and have much more to add. These are generous sentiments to which, as a Member of Parliament, I am proud to subscribe. For me the Common Market is the inexorable logic of history. I am no less English for being European, and no less European for being an internationalist.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: I should like to return to the major realities of this controversy rather than the pious hopes and illusions of which we have heard a good deal.
We are holding this debate at a time when the House and the country are supposed to be awaiting the result of the Government's negotiations with the E.E.C. All that the electorate were


invited to do last June and, indeed, all that the party conferences were asked to do in October, was to wait and see what terms emerged from these negotiations. Neither the electorate nor the party conferences were asked to approve a decision to join the E.E.C., and certainly neither of them did so. Therefore I think that what we should do today is to look frankly at what has emerged and is emerging from the right hon. Gentleman's negotiations. When we do that, the plain fact which stands out is that, although no doubt the right hon. Gentleman has personally done his best, he has been forced to give way already so much of what is vital to British interests that one wonders whether there is very much left to wait for.
Let me enumerate briefly and factually what the right hon. Gentleman has given away to date. First, he has accepted en bloc the whole of the Rome Treaty, all the decisions and laws following from it and all future decisions which may be taken, whether by a majority or otherwise. Second, he has accepted, as we were told again today, the whole main substance of the common agricultural policy, from which almost the entire economic damage to this country is likely to follow.
Third, the right hon. Gentleman has accepted that the level of food prices in the E.E.C., which we would have to have imposed upon us if we joined, are not to be discussed in these negotiations at all. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny—I do not think that he will, but I do not want to tempt him to interrupt me—that the actual level of individual food prices in future is outside the scope of these negotiations? This is at a time, incidentally, when the recent O.E.C.D. Report on the British Economy has given this advice to the British Government:
The admission of low cost food imports could make an important contribution to relieving inflationary pressure.
Fourth, most of the substance of the assurances given about safeguarding Commonwealth interests have now been abandoned. Apart from special arrangements for the sugar-producing countries, New Zealand, some African countries, perhaps, and a so-called "transition" period, there are to be virtually no safeguards whatever for British trade in the whole of

the rest of the Commonwealth preference area, including the vital markets of Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan and many others.
That does not fairly carry out the assurances which were given by British Ministers in both the last Governments, that Commonwealth interests would be safeguarded. That is, incidentally, the opinion of many in the Commonwealth, including Australia, which is a large and vital market for us. Indeed, even for New Zealand and the sugar-producing countries, there is not even yet any assurance that the proposed arrangements would be more than temporary palliatives.
Fifth, the arrangements which the Government are trying to make to limit this country's budget contribution will, as I understand it, be purely temporary. The Chancellor of the Duchy virtually admitted this yesterday—unless he cares to deny it now. At least, from 1980 onwards, the full financial regulations of the E.E.C. will come into effect unqualified, and from that time on, we are bound to hand over 90 per cent. of the new food tax revenue, 90 per cent. of all customs revenue and an additional amount equal to a rate of 1 per cent. of v.a.t. or purchase tax.
In last Sunday's Sunday Times Business News, Mr. Malcom Crawford wrote:
E.E.C. officials have calculated that, whatever the result of the present negotiations, Britain will be obliged from 1980 onwards to pay about 22 per cent. to 23 per cent. of the total Common Market budget.
That article goes on:
This fact, which has not yet been admitted by Ministers, is based on the Community financial regulations, which the existing members have already agreed, and which Britain has now accepted in principle.
Indeed, M. Deniau of the Commission, when over here recently, also made it clear, I understand, that the supposed review procedure, which was supposed to be invoked if this caused intolerable strain to the British economy, was no more than the normal E.E.C. assumption that some sort of talks would take place if any member had a special grievance. It therefore would be of little practical value, particularly when one remembers that a decision of this kind would go to the Council of Ministers and require unanimous approval.
Do Ministers deny that the British budget contribution would necessarily be determined in that way, after the temporary period is over? If that is true, the contribution is bound to total by that time, on the assumptions of last February's White Paper, something like £600 million a year gross at 1971 prices, to be paid across the exchanges.
So much for what the right hon. Gentleman has given away already. This means that vastly the greater part of the economic damage to our balance of payments and standard of living would now be inevitable, whatever details the right hon. Gentleman negotiates on particular areas or so-called transition years. For the country must realise clearly that the budgetary contribution would be only one part of the total balance of payments cost.
This was stated very lucidly by Sir Con O'Neill in Brussels on 12th January, as follows
Britain not only has to consider its budgetary contribution but also the increased cost of agricultural imports from the Six, the loss of certain preferences for its industrial goods and the effect of the increased cost of living on the general level of industrial costs.
I hope that the House will now realise, in the light of Sir Con O'Neill's analysis and the negotiations to date, the magnitude of the balance of payments burden which would be inevitable if we joined on these terms. I think that there is a lot of illusion about this. This can now, within a reasonable margin of error, be recalculated in terms of 1971 trade values and volumes, and assuming that the permanent and not just the temporary arrangements were to be enforced.
The first burden would be the direct budgetary contribution itself. When the full system, as described, comes into effect, it follows from last February's White Paper—this is confirmed by the E.E.C. estimate of a 22 to 23 per cent. share of the Common Market cost—that the full long period cost on the United Kingdom would be about £600 million gross a year, if not more.
The present Government themselves, in their estimate which they still have not published, but which everyone knows in Brussels and Paris and which was submitted to the E.E.C. in July, put the net figure at £470 million a year after generous allowances of, I understand,

£180 million for the supposed back payments to us. That leaves one with the conclusion that the lowest possible figure at which one can put the net contribution is about £400 million a year—and that is pretty optimistic.
The next item, as Sir Con O'Neill points out, is the higher cost of food and feeding stuffs imports. This consists, of course, both of the dear food which we should have to buy from the Community instead of cheaper food from efficient producers in the outside world, and also—this is sometimes forgotten—of the much higher price which we would have to pay for food imports which we already get from the Community now at a low price, and which we would have the privilege of taking at the extortionate price which they charge their internal consumers, if we were to join.
Those two items, since the total United Kingdom food and feeding stuff imports are now over £2,000 million a year, must, I should have thought, at the very least—this is higher food import prices—amount to at least £200 million a year. Therefore, the direct agricultural costs in the long term—the higher contribution and higher food prices—cannot now honestly be put at a lower figure than about £600 million a year.
That is the loss on the import side of the balance of payments. On the export side, we have to face a net loss of exports, due to what Sir Con O'Neill rightly calls both the loss of certain preferences and the effect of higher living costs on our industrial costs.
Since the Government are now proposing virtually no safeguards for the main preference area countries, we are bound to lose free entry rights as well as preferences throughout the preference area and the E.F.T.A. countries which do not join. To this group of countries, to both the preference area and the non-applicant E.F.T.A. countries, we are now exporting nearly £3,000 million worth of goods a year, far more than we export to the E.E.C. Indeed, our exports to the preference area alone have risen by about £600 million a year since 1966 and now amount to about £2,300 million.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: In referring to the E.F.T.A. countries which do not join, is my right hon. Friend


deleting from his overall calculations the figures relating to those countries?

Mr. Jay: I am making what I regard as the reasonable assumption that non-applicant E.F.T.A. countries will not join.
As we are now enjoying about 60 per cent. free entry into this whole group of countries, it seems undeniable that the erection of their full normal m.f.n. tariffs against all our industrial exports—which must follow our joining the E.E.C. on these terms—would face us with a loss of exports due to tariff changes of at least £250 million a year. This is confirmed by the C.B.I. in its valuable estimate that we would lose about the same total of exports in the preference area alone as we would gain in the Community.
On top of that—and I am still following Sir Con O'Neill—there would be a further loss of exports in the world outside the E.E.C. due to our higher industrial costs. Higher food prices in this country, the value-added tax and higher insurance contributions, would raise the level of our living costs by 6 per cent. or more. A rise of labour costs by this amount over the total of our exports in the world outside the E.E.C., which are now more than £6,500 million a year, must mean a further loss in exports of at least £300 million a year.
In trade with the E.E.C. itself, the increase in our imports from the Community would certainly exceed the increase in our exports to it, leaving us with a further net worsening of the balance, because our costs would rise substantially and our tariff cuts would be larger than theirs. In particular, I believe that our motor industry would suffer severely.
Thus, without going into more details—I would like to, but there is not time—if we face the facts in the light of the negotiations to date, we must reckon on a total agricultural cost to the balance of payments of at least £600 million a year and, in addition, a net loss in our trade balance in industrial goods, after allowing for higher exports to the Community, of between £500 million and £600 million a year. Even beyond this, if we face the whole prospect fairly, we must realise that there would be a rise in manufactured imports here from the

rest of the world because of our higher costs; and the removal of exchange control would add a further unquantifiable liability for capital exports.
However one allows for margins of error—we all agree that there are bound to be such errors when looking ahead, but it is not therefore unwise to look ahead—it is plain beyond reasonable doubt that we would be faced, on the prospects now emerging from these negotiations, with an extra balance of payments burden of well over £1,000 million a year by the time this new system was fully operating. On each item these are moderate estimates, and the House would be deceiving itself if it imagined that the prospective burden would be likely to be less than something of this order.
It is also clearly implied in the questionnaire which was submitted to the Government by the Commission only last week—if the Government deny this, they should publish the questionnaire—that the payment of the full contribution at the end of the transition period, on top of all the other damage that we would suffer, would be more than the United Kingdom could stand economically and would imperil our balance of payments and sterling.
Confronted with a growing balance of payments deficit of this order, this country would be forced to lower its food consumption and standard of living proportionately to overcome the deficit. If we were free to devalue, we could not escape the lower living standards and still higher prices, but at least economic growth from a lower level would still be possible.
But even this line of escape seems to be cut off by the extraordinary monetary and exchange policies to which the E.E.C. has now committed itself in pledging the member countries to ever-more rigidly fixed exchange rates and monetary union which is now accepted in principle for 1980.
Not able to devalue, in those circumstances the United Kingdom would be forced into chronic deflation which, in all reasonable probability, would reduce our economic growth even further than what we have known in recent years. Indeed, the whole lesson of recent economic history is that exchange rates should be more, and not less, flexible; and this is


the one way the United Kingdom can achieve growth without persistent deficit at the same time.
Yet the E.E.C. is moving in precisely the opposite direction. And our Chancellor of the Exchequer has blithely accepted the whole of these exchange and monetary policies, apparently in advance and without argument. Yet the combination of a heavy balance of payments deficit and an imposed fixed exchange rate is a recipe not just for economic decline but, I believe, for economic disaster. It is flying in the face of all the economic experience of recent years.
There are some who try to evade this conclusion, and who say that by joining the E.E.C. we would automatically take on board some mysterious secret of economic growth. This argument is hardly worth answering because few people now believe it. The truth is that our future growth now depends on our own economic policies and cannot be contracted like some sort of disease merely by joining this or any other customs union. If it could be, there are a great many industrial countries, from Japan to the other members of E.F.T.A., which we would be better advised to join.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: My right hon. Friend says that there is little evidence to show that there would be economic growth for us in joining the Community. Although he paid tribute to the C.B.I. document, he could not have read it because it expresses the view that our entry would provide that growth.

Mr. Jay: If my hon. Friend had read that document as carefully as I have, he would have noticed that while its figures are valuable, its verbal conclusions appear to contradict those figures. If my hon. Friend is interested in the historical facts of this matter—

Mr. Sheldon: I urge my right hon. Friend to read what the document says.

Mr. Jay: —the truth is that growth in the Six has been slower since the Treaty of Rome was signed than it was before. At the same time, in the O.E.C.D. countries other than the Six, growth has more than doubled in the years since the Treaty was signed. Indeed, in the E.F.T.A. countries other than the United Kingdom, growth has been faster since the Treaty

of Rome was signed. Our future growth will depend on our balance of payments and our freedom to alter our exchange rates when we wish to do so, and both of these would be jeopardised by our joining the E.E.C.

Captain Walter Elliot: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that growth has been encouraged in this country by the formation of the E.F.T.A.?

Mr. Jay: I would say that growth has not been affected very much one way or the other by the formation of the E.F.T.A. It is our persistent balance of payments deficits which have forced Governments to deflate, and that is what has held back our growth.
There are still some left who say that, although that is the truth about the immediate balance of payments and growth prospects, there would nevertheless be some mysterious "dynamic" economic benefits which we should achieve in the rather remote future by joining the E.E.C. That illusion ignores the simple fact that the balance of payments burden would not be temporary. It would last as long as the common agricultural policy, which is really the kernel of the E.E.C. system.
In addition to that argument, the National Institute, which deals in facts and figures, not illusions, has now done a most valuable service by searchingly inquiring into the alleged dynamic benefits. It concludes thus:
It is hard to think that if the dynamic properties of a widening market were really as great as is sometimes suggested, the statistical evidence of their influence would be so completely and consistently lacking.… To accept a heavy burden of impact effects as the price of entry, in the belief that the dynamic effects are likely to be even bigger, would under these circumstances represent a triumph of hope over experience.
That conclusion is made even more incontestable for this reason. Some of those who have still not thought the problem out have deluded themselves with the idea that joining the E.E.C. would somehow mean a wider total market for British industry. But it would not. It would demonstrably mean a narrower, not a wider, market in the world as a whole. We should certainly lose more exports than we should gain, and competitive imports would increase;


which must involve a permanent narrowing of the total market for British industry. That conclusion, incidentally, follows directly—my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) will be interested here—from the C.B.I. calculation that the loss of exports in the preference area alone would equal the gain in the E.E.C. It follows also from last year's White Paper.
Yet there are still some who erect elaborate arguments on the basis of this mythical larger market, although the facts and figures show beyond doubt that the total market would be narrower.

Mr. Sheldon: rose—

Mr. Jay: I do not think that I should give way to my hon. Friend again.

Mr. Sheldon: My right hon. Friend mentioned me just now. His second misconception about what the C.B.I. said must be corrected. It was perfectly clear:
Free access to a large and faster growing market should provide the necessary conditions for the achievement by the United Kingdom of a significantly faster rate of growth than has been realised in the past 15 years.

Mr. Jay: I am surprised that someone so gifted as my hon. Friend should ignore the figures and be deluded by the verbiage.

Mr. Sheldon: My right hon. Friend has misquoted and misconstrued.

Mr. Jay: Even when all that is fully understood, we are told that the immense economic burdens and dangers have to be borne for the sake of the political advantages. What are these immense political benefits? I have found that too many people, when they say that the argument is political, really mean that the argument is irrational, or that they are—sincerely—unable to explain what it is. But, to give full credit to those who use this argument, what I think they are saying—the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) said it candidly yesterday—is that, if this country joins a federal super-State in Western Europe, we shall then be able to exert greater influence in the world. That is what the argument comes to. Yet at the same time we are being told, very often by the same enthusiasts for entry, that entry does not involve joining any sort of federal super-State.
That is, surely, a dishonest attitude. Either signing the Treaty of Rome will not involve us at any time in joining such a State; in which case the whole political argument falls to the ground. Or else it will; which means, in effect, abandoning in time not just sovereignty but the political independence of this country. And the great majority of the British people are certainly opposed to that. Before this debate is over, the Government should really tell us whether they favour joining a federal State in Europe or not.
The evidence is now overwhelming that the E.E.C. is moving in that direction. It has accepted the objective of a directly elected Parliament, and monetary union by 1980. Neither of those, unless they are to be shams, is possible without the creation of a federal central Government with overriding powers. That means not just a limited sacrifice of sovereignty which one could take back as one can under normal treaties, but an irrevocable and irreversible process by which the power of decision is transferred elsewhere and cannot be taken back. I felt that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford, speaking from our Front Bench today, totally ignored that vital distinction in his remarks about sovereignty.
Yet it is clear beyond dispute that neither this Government nor this Parliament has any mandate to take such an unparalleled constitutional decision without consulting the electorate. The general election manifesto of the Conservative Party which, I suppose, is now the ruling document, said last June—it was remarkably clear—
Our sole commitment is to negotiate: no more, no less.
Plainly, therefore, the Government have no moral or constitutional right to go beyond that without consulting the electorate again. Indeed, if Parliament were to claim that right, it would be deeply damaging to Parliament itself.
Yet the Government seem bent—I hope they are not, but they appear from their actions to be—on asking Parliament, without a mandate, to accept a settlement which would do great economic harm to this country, which would before very long sacrifice our essential political freedom in the world, which would, incidentally, alienate many of our best friends


overseas, and which would be likely to set back the whole cause of greater free trade which might have been built on E.F.T.A. and the Kennedy Round.
How infinitely better it would be to shake off now, this narrow obsession with one trading group, and work steadily, with whatever patience and wisdom would be needed, for a wider and looser form of association which would include all of us—the E.E.C., E.F.T.A., the Commonwealth, the United States and the rest—preserving each our own independence and our democratically adopted internal policies.
On all the evidence, the British public are so overwhelmingly opposed to the sort of settlement which the Government now propose that I believe we shall before long return to sanity once again.

6.39 p.m.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: On a previous occasion in the last Parliament when I had the privilege of following the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), I observed that it was difficult not to feel a sense of intellectual inferiority in following someone who had the triple qualification of being a former President of the Board of Trade, a Fellow of All Souls and the father of the Editor of Business Section of The Times. I cannot pay the right hon. Gentleman a more fitting or more deserved compliment than to say that the clarity and cogency of his argument today and his devastating presentation of the economic facts of the case in particular are fully worthy of anybody enjoying that unique qualification.
As this is the first time we have debated the matter in the present Parliament, perhaps I might briefly identify my position. [Laughter.] It is a great mistake for right hon. Members to assume that their words are as well known as they would like them to be, so I am taking the precaution of making it clear that I am opposed to entry into the Common Market on the terms of an unrevised Treaty of Rome. It follows that I am not likely to find wholly meaningful or satisfactory any negotiations which do not go to the heart of the matter in the sense that they provide for at least the possibility of amending the Treaty and improving the working of the Community. I am not, and never have been, anti-Common Market in the sense of

having any hostility to the Community. Far from it. I made that clear in 1961 and again in 1967, when I said I opposed our entry to the Community because, though no doubt the Common Market is suited to the needs of the countries in it, it is not suited to Britain's special and different position.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), who, having made his speech, seems to have deserted the Chamber quickly and continuously ever since, observed that critics of entry rested their case on the fact that Britain had a different and better position. I have never used the word "better" in this context. I have never made that sort of qualitative comparison and I have never heard it made in the House, so it is difficult to think on what that observation was based.
I believe that the position is even clearer today than it was in those earlier days, as one would expect at the end of the transitional period under the Treaty and with the consequential tightening up of the structure of the Community. It is perhaps for this reason and perhaps also because time has given more opportunity for study and comprehension of the implications that more people are against entry today than there were then, certainly in the country and probably in the House as a whole.
Those who are not opposed to entry are comprised in three main groups, to each of which I shall say a short word this evening. The first group is normally known as "Europeans", though again, as with the expression "anti-Marketeers", it is an over-simplification. Their view substantially is that Britain has a significant future only as part of the Community and perhaps in the further future as part of a political federation. For them, therefore, as the goal is clear it does not really matter if the negotiations touch only on fringe matters, because on that view the negotiations in any event should not lead to a withdrawal of the application. For them the right terms mean, in effect, the best terms that will be available at the end of the day, be they what they are. Of course, they would say that it is better to pay a low price than a high price in that as in any other transaction, but in any event they say that the price will be worth paying. They echo the words of King Henry IV


of France, who said, "Paris vain bien une messe."
I do not have very much to say to them today, save this. I respect the sincerity and good faith of their position and the skill of the presentation of their argument. But the logic of their conclusion depends on the validity of the premise from which it derives, the premise that in a changing world Britain has no distinctive individual contribution to make, that her unique institutions are better absorbed into an extraneous and prefabricated system, that her global position is no longer a reality, and that her overseas and Commonwealth connections have become so tenuous and expendable that their sacrifice is immaterial. I do not accept the premise, and therefore I cannot accept the conclusion.

An. Hon. Member: What conclusion?

Sir D. Walker-Smith: The conclusion that Britain's future lies only in being absorbed into the Community and cannot successfully be pursued on more traditional lines. That is the conclusion to which I am referring, and which I cannot share. I believe that Britain, though diminished indeed in military might and material resources, still has a distinctive contribution to make, that her institutions are still worth preserving, and that her extra-European connections are still worth maintaining. I therefore take the view that we should pursue a policy not of integration but of close and cordial co-operation with the Six against that background and within the requirements of our special position.
The second group are those who take an optimistic view, who see potential benefits in our joining the Community but hope that somehow it would not involve the consequential penalties which students of the Community and the Treaty identify as a necessary corollary to them. This was really the official position in 1961. I did not accept it then, and I cannot accept it now. Indeed, I believe that circumstances make it less tenable today than it was then on two grounds, first, because the expectation of economic benefit is shown to be weaker and, second, because the constitutional implications are clearer.
As to economic benefits, two aspects are suggested—tariff reduction and

economies of scale. But we now have to see tariff reduction in the context of the Kennedy Round, which has made tariffs a relatively small barrier to trade in the world. It has become gratifyingly clear that nations can and will move to greater liberalisation of trade without having to become part of a customs union designed to give internal free trade, but only at the expense of a common external tariff.
The argument of economies of scale is of course right in principle, but it is a very different thing to assume that we would obtain them by entry to the Community, at any rate in sufficient measure to offset the economic detriment—the loss of preferences, the higher food prices, and the payments across the exchanges. The White Paper of last February admitted that it is impossible to quantify the so-called dynamic effects. But the matter goes even further. Even their existence cannot be proved. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the study by the National Institute Economic Reiew, referred to at Question time today as a scholarly work—

An Hon. Member: By whom?

Sir D. Walker-Smith: By my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.
This scholarly work concludes that there is no substantial evidence that the countries of the Community have become more competitive, more specialised or faster growing by reason of their membership, and that, if anything, the evidence points in the other direction. Therefore it is clear that we must revise the optimism in regard to economic benefit; and the same applies to the constitutional penalties.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford said that sovereignty was a relatively new point and that the position has changed. But that is not so. The point was clearly taken in all the earlier debates on the matter. The only thing that has changed is the argument for entry. Whereas in those days we were told that the economic benefit was such that we must put up with the political detriment, we are now told that the political benefit is such that we must put up with the economic detriment.
It cannot be maintained that British sovereignty, particularly the sovereignty of Parliament, would not be seriously


eroded by entry. Of course it would. That is what the Community is for—to substitute Community law and government for national law and government over a wide range of economic and social life. That is what Lord Denning, with the great authority of the Master of the Rolls, has said. He stated that entry would mean that
our constitutional law must be re-written so as to show that the sovereignty of these Islands is not ours alone but shared with others.
That has become clearer over the years with the steady flow of regulations, nearly 10,000 to date, which, in the words of Article 189 of the Treaty, are binding in every respect and directly applicable in each member State. It has become clearer too with the final evolution of a rigid supra-national common agricultural policy. For the future it will be the same. There is no requirement of unanimity under Article 189 and consequently no possibility of veto. Under that Article, regulations made in Brussels would be enforceable in this country even if every Member of Parliament would wish to vote against them if he had the opportunity.
Nor is it sensible to pretend that the Treaty does not mean what it says, or that its obligations could in some way be evaded or shrugged off. In any event, it would be contrary to British practice to give our hand to an agreement which we did not intend to honour to the full. It would be contrary to our interests to enter any society where that was thought to be appropriate. Therefore, optimism must be tempered with realism, and the prospects objectively assessed in the light of the facts.
The third group is the wait-and-see group, those who qualify their desire for entry with reference to the outcome of the negotiations and the proviso that the terms must be right. For that view to be practical we must know what terms are considered to be satisfactory and what is the scope of the negotiations. Here the position is obstinately obscure and the Government are curiously coy. The speeches of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) yesterday were peppered with references to the right and reasonable terms, but they did not condescend to precise definition of what was meant by that phrase.
After all, we have been invited to regard the negotiations as of crucial importance. The Conservative Manifesto made that clear, saying that there was no commitment save to negotiate. If negotiations are so important as to constitute the Government's sole commitment, the reasonable inference must be that they will be concerned with the basic considerations. But in fact they are not. They are concerned with some very important matters identified by my right hon. and learned Friend yesterday. New Zealand dairy products and sugar are very important matters, but viewed in terms of membership in perpetuity the negotiations are in a sense on fringe matters, because they leave intact the main unacceptable features of the Market—the loss of sovereignty, the high cost of the common agricultural policy, the damage to our trade and our trading partners, the bureaucratic rigidities and the undemocratic form of administration.
We are told that the negotiations will avoid the pitfalls of the kangaroo meat type of discussion, and avoid getting down into too much detail. But there is no point in avoiding detail at the price of not getting to grips with essentials—and the essential thing now is that we are faced with the irreversible decision, as it is called, for a federal style budget in 1977. In 1961, and even in 1967, people might take comfort from the thought that things were in an evolutionary state and that we might hope then to influence their final form. Now, all that is the dust of yesterday. The common agricultural policy and the financial regulations are final and irreversible and we must take them or leave them.
By 1977, our commitment would be absolute—forced payments on receipts from compulsory levies on our overseas farm imports, on customs receipts, and on a percentage of a value-added tax—all this, not for the benefit of British agriculture but at any rate at present to prop up the Community's agricultural structure, the vast majority of which is a structure which is acknowledged, not only by opponents of entry but generally, to be ossified, uneconomic, anachronistic and wholly inappropriate to the needs of the twentieth century.
We should be making the worst bargain since Esau sold his birthright for a mess of potage. Indeed, we would be making


an even worse bargain. He at least received a mess of potage; but we shall be paying for them to take our birthright and our sovereignty. What matters is the position after 1977, at the end of the financial transitional period. We are told on high authority that a week is a long time in politics. But seven years is a short time in the life of a nation, and the long-term position is what negotiations should be about, and if these things are not open to negotiation I doubt whether there is any point in negotiating at all.
If the negotiations are not getting to the heart of the matter, if they are to be concerned exclusively with the short-term, with efforts to temper the transitional wind to the shorn British lamb, then I say that I do not think that they are meaningful. It is as if someone faced with the possibility of a life sentence, instead of devoting his energies to trying to avoid it, concentrated all his effort on trying to improve his conditions while on remand.
I end with two pleas—one to those who have reserved their position to date and the other to the Government. To those who have reserved their position, I make this plea—that they define the terms which they think requisite at the end of the negotiations and ask themselves now whether the negotiations have in fact any material chance of achieving them. If the answer be, "No", then I ask them to accept the position, to eschew the political fence—always an inelegant and precarious position—and take their stand with diginity and firmness on the broad ground of British interest, not in a narrow or insular spirit but with confidence alike in the contribution that Britain can make and in the good will that she will show.
To the Government, my plea is this—that they remember the limitations of the mandate that the nation has been asked to give. I say to them, "Do not be tempted to revise it to an assumed mandate for entry at any price or for entry at a price which Britain should not be asked to pay". If the scope of the negotiations is as narrow as it appears to be, then it is better to be frank and to be frank now, and tell the Six that there are features of the Community which, because of our differing needs, are not for us; and to tell them, in all friendship and harmony, that we must therefore seek

other paths of contact and co-operation, since we can no longer fruitfully pursue the negotiations or continue laboriously and painfully to tread the stony path to entry.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. David Ginsburg: The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) has always been lucid and consistent on this subject but he made one point—his major point—which I fail to understand. He said that he was not anti-Common Market. He said, as he has said before, that his objection was to the Rome Treaty and that he wanted it amended. Strictly, of course—and I am recalling the words of Mr. Harold Macmillan when this issue was before us in 1961—the British application is to sign the Rome Treaty, subject, I understand, to the amendments necessary on the accession of a new member.
But I will not lay too much point on that minor aspect. I want to put the broader point that the Rome Treaty is a fact and that it is also a dynamic fact. It will adapt best with Britain, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman might agree that all the member countries, and, for that matter, their Parliaments, will have to be consulted on the major constitutional changes that he has referred to. If he really is not so anti-Common Market as he gives the impression sometimes of being, if he really wants to get into Europe, I remind him that entry into Europe was easier in 1949–50, in the time of Lord Attlee and Ernest Bevin, than it was in 1955–56, when the Rome Treaty was drawn up; it was easier for Britain in 1955–56 than in 1961, when we put our first application in; it was easier for Mr. Macmillan's Government than it was for the Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson) in 1967—and it was easier for my right hon. Friend than it is now. If one says that one is not anti-Common Market but that some time one must go in, then surely it is logical that, if that is the consideration, we have seriously to consider that there is little to be gained by delaying on this aspect of the problem.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: I do not want there to be misunderstanding. I was not on a point of time. I was saying that I was not anti-Common Market in the sense of having hostility to the Six. I said that


no doubt it was a Community suited to their needs but that we could not have an association on the terms of the Rome Treaty. It would require very substantial amendment.

Mr. Ginsburg: I shall not pursue this point further. I thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the question of amendment of the Rome Treaty, an attitude which suggests that one is not totally opposed to something if one is seeking its amendment. That is an important point, but I will leave it now because I want to turn to the Government and to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and plead with them that they should keep up the momentum. It is the time this problem has been around which has led to a lot of public apathy, cynicism and disillusionment. It is right to consider not only the details of the negotiations, on which I will not comment much, but also the issues which face the House and the nation, and which will face us particularly when we come to the point of decision.
It has been suggested in some quarters that we should proceed by way of referendum when the time comes. There are arguments for and against referenda, and I do not want to digress into a long discussion about them. My posture is simple. I think the problem has to be decided through British institutions of representative democracy but I think that we should pause to consider the responsibilities which we all carry as hon. Members and which the Government in particular carry on this supremely important issue.
It seems to me that on this unique issue we as Members of the House are trustees for those who think our way among our constituents and are trustees for those who may disagree with us. But we are also trustees for the future. To me, the issue of joining the Common Market and entering Europe is one of the supreme issues of our time. But strong though my feelings and convictions are, I accept that one cannot accomplish this against what, for want of a better word, I would call the "consensus" of the British people.
Equally, I say to hon. Members on both sides of the House who oppose going into the Common Market, that we must accept that they, too, have a responsibility

in this matter—a responsibility to the future as well as to the present—and that they would be wrong without the deepest thought to let go by an opportunity for Britain to enter the Common Market which, I venture to suggest, may never return again.
Ascertaining the opinions and the real interest of Britain is not an easy process. One cannot do it by simple opinion polls—and here I suppose I should declare my interest as director of a market research company. I know from my professional experience that government by poll is the negation of government. If Governments spend their time reading public opinion polls, this becomes a prescription for doing nothing. The process of assessment has to be continuous and weighty and in the final analysis it devolves on hon. Members of this House and nowhere else.
Just as hon. Members have their responsibilities, so have the Government. It has been suggested from time to time that on an issue involving bipartisanship there would be advantage if the Opposition were in on the negotiations. I do not accept that. The responsibility is quite properly that of the Government. However, the Government have the responsibility of acting for the country and the responsibility of carrying the country with them. It is not a platitude to say that they need a united community at home.
We are all party men here and, of course, the present Government, according to their lights, are no more partisan than the last Government. But Ministers and especially the Prime Minister must ask themselves whether what, for want of better words, I described as "tough, controversial domestic policies" are the best thing at a time when all efforts should be concentrated on trying to get the British public to accept the logic and the need of the European case.
There is an additional point that should be made here. Although politics should be a rational exercise, it is true that there is an act of faith involved here. I believe that the logic of history, especially since the Second World War, is for a united Europe and I hope that it would eventually evolve with an elected European Parliament. I believe that an enlarged Community, with British membership, is a start along that road. I fully


concede that such a view is an act of faith in the future. It cannot be quantified or proven. But equally, of course, I remind the opponents of British entry that to proclaim the need for continued, unmodified British sovereignty in this modern world also involves an act of faith. No one can prove whether the supporters or the critics are right; only the future will tell.
I believe that one's faith in the future is reinforced by the lessons of history. The unity of Western Europe, especially of France and Germany, is a great development, and it would be a terrible tragedy if at this moment in world history Britain stood back from this evolution.
This brings me to the subject of the terms. It was very lucidly argued by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) that the quantification exercise on which the last Government embarked was a vain exercise. As so often, the right hon. Gentleman was both right and wrong at the same time. The big issue is whether Britain should go into a wider Community and it is much more vital than—I was about to say—the price of potatoes, but one is now tempted to say than the price of Cox's applies; however, at the risk of being quoted, I am prepared to stand by that. Equally, I accept that the surrender of British sovereignty, or a substantial modification of British sovereignty, is a much bigger issue than any possible minor improvements in living standards which may result from joining the Community.
To that extent, the quantification exercise undertaken in the last White Paper masks the big issues which are before the House now and which will be before the House in due course, issues which I can only describe as being of political faith and imagination. They relate, and cannot help being related, to our concept of the kind of Europe we wish to see and Britain's rôle in it, and they vastly transcend the White Paper published by the Government of my right hon. Friends.
Yes, whether or not the British entry into the E.E.C. is right for our destiny, the quantification exercise is, in a limited sense, essential, because the British public is bound to view the matter in concrete, day-to-day and bread-and-butter terms. It is inevitable that the elector

will want to weigh the short-term costs of joining the Market against the short-term benefits of joining the Market.
It follows that those who support Britain's entry have to recognise a transitional problem. It is partly financial, but there is another aspect. There are important administrative features in the transitional problem, because the institutions of Government will have to be streamlined if we are to go into the Market, and many other institutions will have to face the transition. I mention one small exercise which will be taking place in a few weeks' time to suggest that Ministers have not given much thought to this aspect of the subject. It is the decimalisation exercise on which we are about to embark. If we go into the Market with a transitional period, it will make decimalisation child's play.
The Common Market problem is twofold. First, will France let us in? If the French veto of British entry is removed, how will the British public take it? This aspect breaks down into two parts. In the final analysis, it is a consumer problem. There is also the problem of public attitudes to be overcome. Although this is an age of greater travel, as well as trade with Europe, there is a language barrier. Although that may seem strange, Governments have not measured the effect of that barrier, or the need for seeking various means of reducing it in the long run.
When this subject was debated in 1961, three major problem areas were outlined—British agriculture, E.F.T.A., and the Commonwealth. Basically, only the third, aspects of the Commonwealth relating to British food consumption remains, and that, too, is subsumed in what I would call the consumer issue. The problem of E.F.T.A. has been resolved, because, basically, the E.F.T.A. countries want to go into the Common Market, and there has been substantial progress with British agriculture.
Therefore, the question is whether we can enter the Market without excessive financial burdens and a serious worsening of the consumer food position. If the answer to both questions is "Yes", we should most certainly go in. To do so would bring an atmosphere of buoyancy and hope to British industry which most of our constituents want. Not to go in would be a tragedy, an economic


tragedy, of course, but also we should be turning our back on Europe and, if that were the case, Europe would turn its back on us.

7.16 p.m.

Colonel Sir Tufton Beamish: The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg) made a very thoughtful speech and, not for the first time, I found myself in agreement with much of what he said. My remarks will dovetail neatly into what he told us.
May I briefly comment on the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith)? He enjoyed himself hugely putting up Aunt Sallys and knocking them down and, even more, making false premises about the arguments of those with whom he did not agree about the Common Market and drawing wrong conclusions from them. With great respect to an old friend, I did not find that impressive.
One of his remarks was most unfortunate and surprising in an eminent lawyer. It was also made by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). My right hon. and learned Friend said that in the last Conservative manifesto there was no commitment except to negotiate. I have been reading it, and I found these words:
If we can negotiate the right terms, we believe that it would be in the long-term interest of the British people for Britain to join the European Economic Community, and that it would make a major contribution to both the prosperity and the security of our country. The opportunities are immense. Economic growth and a higher standard of living would result from having a larger market.
My right hon. and learned Friend cannot have read the manifesto. What he said has been repeated by many others who share his views.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: I have read the manifesto. Would my hon and gallant Friend be good enough to read on? The words are that the commitment is to negotiate, no more and no less. My hon. and gallant Friend referred to my being a lawyer: lawyers draw a distinction between statements of intention and commitments. My hon. and gallant Friend has just read the commitment, which was the word I used, and I was correct in saying that it was the sole commitment.

Sir T. Beamish: As I read it, and as most other people read it, the commitment is to negotiate in order to find what terms we can get and, if we can get terms which are satisfactory, these are the advantages which would flow. That seems perfectly obvious to me but, then, I am not a lawyer.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North and my right hon. and learned Friend made similar remarks about the lack of economic advantage likely to flow from joining the Community. I wonder what comment those with that view would make on the fact that before they produced their second report the C.B.I. consulted 1,200 member firms about whether they thought that advantage would flow from joining the Community. Most of them were deeply involved in exports and 75 per cent. were strongly in favour of joining the E.E.C., while 10 per cent. were against. Was this because they wanted to export less or because they wanted to export more? The answer is fairly obvious, and if this is not a good piece of evidence for my right hon. Friend it certainly is for me. I should like the anti-marketeers, if I might call them that, to take as a slogan something once said by Groucho Marx:
I wouldn't dream of joining any club that would have me as a member.
I should like to concentrate on the attempts, as I see them, to cloud the real issues behind a smokescreen of exaggeration and emotionalism, and the attempts to exploit fear of all change. Whether we are in principle in favour of joining the Community, or we do not know, or are inflexibly opposed to joining it on any terms, we all know that one thing bands us together; that the decision to go in or stay out is one of historic importance which will affect the lives of everyone in the country now and future generations, perhaps for all time. That we can agree about.
There was a time in our history when even such crucial decisions as this could be taken by those in power, and imposed, by force if necessary, on a reluctant or even on a rebellious people. Since Cromwell's time, however, Britain's rulers have needed the blessing of a Parliamentary majority. Now, such far-reaching decisions touching on the lives of everyone in the country must also have the backing of public opinion. I agree with


what the hon. Member for Dewsbury said about that. The Prime Minister has made it absolutely clear on numerous occasions that that is his view.
Looking back, it was inconceivable that Britain could take part in two world wars unless the British people had the will to fight for their survival. A referendum in 1936 or 1937 would without doubt have shown a massive vote of confidence in the then current policy of appeasement, wishful thinking, isolationism and disarmament, reflecting the escapist mood of the country, still suffering, as we were, from a terrible war. A General Election held on that one issue—which would have been impossible, just as it would be impossible on the issue of the Common Market—would have had the same result, and the disarmers and isolationists would have won quite easily. Fortunately, the truth dawned in time on Parliament that, ill-prepared as we were and costly as it would be, there was no alternative to war.
It is just as inconceivable today that Parliament should ride roughshod over the wishes of the people and accept the provisions of the Treaty of Rome unless public opinion comes out in favour of doing so. The danger is not only a failure in two-way communications between Parliament and the people—although they are not working very well at present—but it is also that the techniques of salesmanship brought to a fine point can be used not only to promote shoddy goods but shoddy ideas—"good wine needs no bush".
I welcome the fact that the nation-wide debate on the Common Market is gaining impetus in the Press, on television and radio, and at meetings all over the country, at rotary clubs, women's institutes, chambers of commerce, Lions clubs and so on. This is splendid. I am sure that the debate will hot up, and I welcome that. The more debate there is the more people will understand the facts and will not be swept off their feet by emotional arguments. Much of the discussion taking place in the country is constructive and useful. But at most of the meetings which I have attended up and down the country I found that for some people the real issues are disguised and distorted by fears deliberately and

sometimes mischievously aroused to sway public opinion against the Common Market.
I am not referring to the scurrilous and even libellous propaganda put out by disreputable individuals and organisations which come in all our mail. There is much too much of that. I received some only yesterday from the National Front, and pretty nasty stuff it was. These squalid broad-sheets preach extreme doctrines which very few Members of Parliament indeed have any sympathy with at all, whether they have serious doubts about the Common Market or are in principle in favour of joining it. But a lot of people are climbing on the anti-Market bandwagon for their own motives.
Of course, it is not the fault of those who oppose our entry at any price if they find that they have such disreputable passengers travelling the same way. We can only dismiss the arguments of the Communist Party, which is utterly opposed to our joining, which for obvious reasons employs its special brand of special pleading, in the way they ought to be dismissed. But here again it is reasonable to say to many hon. Members on both sides of the House who are against joining the Common Market that they ought to have a pretty good think about the fact that they are saying exactly the same thing about not joining it as the Communist Party is saying. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] It is perfectly true. There is only one party which put up a substantial number of candidates at the last General Election which is absolutely opposed to joining, and that is the Communist Party. I am not for a wild moment suggesting that any of my hon. Friends are Communists.

Mr. Richard Body: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman inviting us to retaliate with references to the consistent view of Sir Oswald Moseley ever since the end of the war?

Sir T. Beamish: The answer to that is no. I regard that as a remarkably silly intervention. It just happens to be true that the Communist Party is utterly opposed to Britain joining the Common Market. They have their reasons for that.

Mrs. Renée Short: rose—

Sir T. Beamish: It is worth finding out what those reasons are. That is what I was trying to suggest. The Communists apart, I recognise that a minority of hon. Members of the House have entirely sincere reasons, representing a much larger proportion of opinion in the country which is opposed to joining the Common Market no matter what terms are offered.
It is hard to understand at present why such a very large proportion of public opinion is opposed to joining the Common Market. It was only in July of 1966 that National Opinion Polls took a poll. Their question was: "Do you think Britain should try to enter the Common Market or not?" That was not loaded in any way. It was as straightforward and clear as a question can be. Only 18 per cent. of those consulted said, "No, we should not try to enter"; 62 per cent. said "Yes"; and 18 per cent. did not know. According to the most recent poll I have seen the figures are roughly reversed.
I am not trying to adduce a mass of arguments to add weight to what I want to see happen. It is a fact we have to face. Part of the explanation is that there has been rather a lot of brain-washing called in aid to bolster what I regard as the pretty barren arguments of those who are opposed to joining the Community whatever the price may be. I shall give some typical examples later. I am not suggesting that we should enter the Community on any terms.
My right hon. Friend suggested in his category I, or whatever it was, that a substantial number of hon. Members and a large number of people in the country are in favour of going in no matter what the price, but I have to tell him that I do not know of one single hon. or right hon. Gentleman on this side of the House who falls into that category.—[Interruption.] There may be one, or two or three, but it is a category which is extremely small. Playing a leading part in the campaign to get the Common Market understood, I am not in favour of joining no matter what the price may be. There may be some hon. Members who are, and that is a perfectly respectable position, but it is a very small number.
Obviously many genuine problems will face this country, whether or not we join the Common Market. That is one of the arguments which those who oppose our

joining overlook. They say that such and such will happen if we join. However, such and such is almost certain to happen in any event, and it may present an even tougher problem if we do not join. Those who oppose our going in should think about that as well.
There are too many phoney arguments used by those who are against our joining. We are always told about the cost of living. They never talk about the standard of living, I find a perfect example of the distortion of this kind of argument in the article to which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture referred in his opening speech, though I think that he unconsciously put words in the mouth of Dr. Zinkin which were the words of the commentary alongside what he said.
On 14th January, 1971, the Daily Express quoted Dr. Zinkin, a food expert, as saying that entry to the Common Market would mean a fall in the consumption of butter of about 20 per cent. and a fall in the consumption of cheese of about 15 per cent. He also talked about other foodstuffs. The following day in a leading article, Dr. Zinkin's words became:
… a prophesy that butter and cheese would vanish from the British menu …
Those are the tactics employed by many people who are opposed to our joining the Common Market, and they are having a profound effect on public opinion.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: That is the view of one newspaper.

Sir T. Beamish: Yes, but it is a very influential and widely read newspaper. It is a very often quoted one.

Mr. Marten: That is not "many people."

Sir T. Beamish: What is not?

Mr. Marten: One newspaper, one writer, one article.

Sir T. Beamish: I think that my point is valid. I could give dozens of quotations from the Beaverbrook Press similar in character where facts have been deliberately distorted, and these distortions are used by people making speeches against the Common Market up and down the country. People have no means of knowing whether what they have read


is true. I think that my example is perfectly fair.
Surely it is obvious that it is the standard of living that matters. It is real wages and salaries that matter. It is paid holidays, it is the amount of tax that one pays, it is the amount of social service benefits that one gets which matter. All these add up to the standard of living. I hope that those who are against our entry will understand this elementary argument and talk more about the standard of living in the Community.
Ten years ago, average weekly wages in the Community were £2 below the average weekly wage in the United Kingdom. Today, the average weekly wage in the Community is £5 above ours.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Well?

Sir T. Beamish: It is a very good state of affairs for the countries in the Community. An extra £7 buys an awful lot of butter.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Sir T. Beamish: No, I am not giving way any more—

Hon. Members: Give way.

Sir T. Beamish: No.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. The hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) has made it plain that he does not intend to give way. Other hon. Members know that, in that case, they must resume their seats.

Sir T. Beamish: Another bogey which is often put up by those opposed to British entry concerns what they call our loss of sovereignty. That has been so well answered in the debate already by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) and others that I need not comment further on it. I will say only that great exaggerations are entering into these arguments, and I hope that opponents of our entering the Common Market will look more carefully at the facts.
They would find it an interesting exercise to compare two other former colonial powers with each other. I refer to Portugal and the Netherlands. Portugal has a very sluggish growth, it has serious inflation and industrial unrest. Com-

paratively, its wages are very low, and it is extremely short of foreign investment. Some may think that I am describing the United Kingdom. All these points apply to us as well. In general, Portugal is poor and has a low standard of living.
The Netherlands is another former colonial Power and, like Portugal, it is a small country. Industrial production in 1969–70 was up by 9·5 per cent. Incidentally, ours was up by nothing. The Netherlands has a sharply rising standard of living. Wages are going up at a steady pace. Unemployment is very low. It has had a much greater say in world affairs since becoming a members of the powerful Community—[AN HON. MEMBER: "Denmark is also doing well."]—Denmark is also doing well, I agree, and it has applied for membership because it wants to do better.
Then there is a great deal of scare talk about the monarchy. That is quite ridiculous. It so happens that of the 10 countries, taking the four and the Six together, six of them would have monarchies. It could be argued that republicans had better be warned because there will be six monarchies out of the 10, and they may all finish up with kings and queens. That would be just as good an argument, but it would be a very silly one. I hope that we shall not hear any more about the threat to the British monarchy.
We hear a lot of talk about the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who run the Community. That is a travesty of the truth, and I waste no further time on it.
Then we are told that members of the Community have lost their diversity, their national characteristics and their cultures and customs. The Germans, one might think, are being forced to eat frogs' legs and the French sauerkraut—

Mr. Marten: That is my hon. and gallant Friend, not us.

Sir T. Beamish: These are ridiculous arguments, but they are arguments which are being used time and time again by those who are opposed to British entry. I wish that they would have a little more sense.

Mr. Marten: Who are they? Name them.

Sir T. Beamish: There is no need to name them. They are using them all the time.

Mr. Marten: Who?

Sir T. Beamish: All of them. By all means let us have vigorous nation-wide debate explaining the genuine arguments for and against joining the Community, but for heaven's sake let it be more constructive.

Mrs. Renée Short: The hon. and gallant Gentleman should tell us.

Sir T. Beamish: As well as being constructive, I hope that we shall be told what is the real alternative. During the first round of negotiations, hon. Members opposed to British entry were all talking about a Commonwealth free trade area. Yet there was not one country in the Commonwealth which was willing to enter a free trade agreement with us. That argument has practically been given up, but we still hear echoes of it.
In the second round of negotiations, there was talk about a North Atlantic free trade association. Yet there was not one country named as a possible member of N.A.F.T.A. which wished to enter such an agreement. That argument has virtually been dropped as well.
Now we have to fall back on E.F.T.A., which increases our home market only to about 95 million people. All hon. Members who are opposed to British entry know that E.F.T.A. was created as a fall-back position so that we could succeed in the next round of negotiations in getting into the Community. They also know that belonging to E.F.T.A. is not a constructive alternative to joining the Community, any more than N.A.F.T.A. and a Commonwealth free trade area were.
It would be disastrous for this country if the terms we are offered are rejected through fear of change, nostalgia for the past, narrow prejudices and a "little England" mentality. I appeal to the anti-marketeers to keep the debate on a serious and rational level and to stop trying to exploit groundless fears.
I conclude on a personal note. I was 28 when first elected to the House of Commons in 1945. It seemed to me then that there were three things of fundamental importance for Britain for which

I and other Members of Parliament should constantly strive. First, that this country should make the greatest possible contribution within its resources to the defence of the free world and thus to the defence of democracy. Secondly, that we should do everything in our power to help to maintain peace through close co-operation with other countries that shared our ideals and aims. Thirdly, that we should work for Britain's prosperity, because only a prosperous country can afford a decent standard of living for the elderly, the sick, the needy and all those who are unable to provide for themselves.
I do not think that I have necessarily done particularly well in any of those three aims, but those aims are no less important now than they were then, and it is because of my conviction that joining the Community would help us to achieve all three of these aims that I am enthusiastically in favour of British entry if the price is fair and within our means.

7.41 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Morris: It is not my intention to follow in detail the remarkable speech we have just heard. I heard it described by an hon. Member whose views are anything but strong on this issue as a shameful and shameless speech. I shall only say that it was picturesque, perhaps overlong and not a particularly helpful speech from the standpoint from which the hon. and gallant Member was speaking.
The right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) opened the debate with an intriguing speech. I remember him in the last Parliament as a bustling and abrasive representative of the Monday Club. It used to be his habit to throw things across the Table of the House and he was nothing if not a forceful member of the Opposition team. But yesterday he was all reasonableness. He was the soul of discretion and politesse. His tactic is extremely interesting. I take it that his purpose is to try to take the heat out of this great debate, but he is being less than fair to the House in this tactic.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman yesterday referred to protecting the sugar producers in the developing Commonwealth countries. There is a dark rumour that he has tabled a proposal in Brussels


to phase out Australia from the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in the event of our entry to the E.E.C. I am certain that there is no majority in this House for excluding Australia from the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement and even more emphatically certain that there is no majority in this country for doing so. Any such dismantling of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement would have a disastrous effect on the International Sugar Agreement, which is a short-term agreement but one which all of us must hope will be continued far into the future. For reasons which the right hon. and learned Gentleman should know, if Australia is taken out of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, then the International Sugar Agreement will be wrecked and that would do great hurt to some forty developing countries.
I take it that hon. Members on both sides of the House are extremely anxious to help the developing countries. Some people say that New Zealand would be very seriously affected but that Australia would not be nearly so badly affected by our entry to the Common Market. But there are circumstances in which the effect on Queensland could be almost as perilous as on New Zealand. The Commonwealth Sugar Agreement is an instrument which is admired throughout the world. It is a basic necessity for the continuance of the International Sugar Agreement. If that Agreement collapses, it means economic disaster for some of the poorest peoples in the world.
The poorer people of this world are interested in trade as much as they are interested in aid. They want trade on fair terms with the developed countries. The main political challenge of the future is how the rich and developed and the poor and developing countries can live in fruitful partnership. That is why the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement must, if necessary, be a breaking point in these negotiations and why there can be no question of allowing any present member of that Agreement to be phased out. Australia has been a very good friend to this country and has many good friends in this country.
The House will recall that I have also been concerned about the proposal for Anglo-French nuclear sharing. I had a summer Adjournment debate on this sub-

ject in July, 1969. My right hon. Friend in a recent speech outside the House criticised very eloquently the whole proposition of an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent, but the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) has said in his Godkin Lectures at Harvard that he would favour an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent. M. Pompidou has said much the same thing:
I believe that the future of a common European nuclear defence policy lies in an agreement between France and Britain. I am quite ready to discuss such a programme with the United Kingdom which would also be a European agreement.
Any suggestion of an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent would have scant support on this side of the House, and the French had better understand that as well as the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Prime Minister. This whole matter of British entry to the E.E.C. must be decided by the people of this country who have so far been inadequately consulted. It is our duty to see that they know all the facts so that they can judge all the opinions.
While I appreciate the purpose of the right hon. Gentleman's tactic in trying to make this a quiet debate, just as I admire his politesse, he is being too clever by three-quarters. As a concession to him, I should perhaps say by ·75 per cent. But he must not be surprised if it becomes a somewhat angry debate. It will be long, detailed and historic, and it behoves us all to make certain that, whatever else happens, at the outcome of this debate and of these negotiations we do not disown the traditional friends of this country.

7.50 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Technically the question which the House is debating is whether we should now adjourn, and I hope we are rightly informed that it is not the intention of any hon. Member at 10 o'clock to seek to divide the House. There will be a time for voting upon this great matter, but that time has not yet come. The time now is for debate, and the debate of today and yesterday has greatly advanced our consideration of the question. Certainly it has destroyed what has hitherto been a curious and rather alarming paradox about the debate on the Common Market, namely, that everything


seemed to turn upon transition and nothing upon transition to what.
The reports, the discussions in the newspapers and much of what was said in this House were about the details of how to get from 1973 to 1977; but where we were going to, to what we were making the transition, had not hitherto been in the centre of debate in this House or outside. It is rather as if there were a proposal for a completely new system of social security, a grand new pension scheme, and all the debate and discussion about it were to turn upon the transition from the present scheme to the new scheme. In fact, if there were such a proposal for a new scheme of social security, we should examine first whether it was in itself good and desirable, our decision would be taken upon that basis, and only then should we devote our attention to the manner in which we were to effect the transition to it.
This paradox has been resolved and disposed of by this two-day debate; and for that we are most of all indebted to two speeches: one was the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which some of those who have spoken have treated unfairly; the other was the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), which is one of the best I have ever heard him make in the House, and that, referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford, is high praise indeed.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy made quite clear what was the destination. He did not confine himself to the journey, he was perfectly can did about the destination. He said
… the Community is now beginning to work gradually towards an economic and monetary union."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1971; Vol. 809, c. 1091.]
So my right hon. Friend has made no secret of the fact that "economic and monetary union" is the destination of the E.E.C. and of those who join it; but he has also made it plain that the union is not purely economic and monetary, that the economic and the political cannot be separated. He quoted with approval the words of the French President when the French President indicated that the object was to move
towards a union which, when it has sufficiently become so, both in fact and in the minds of the peoples, will be able to have

its own policy, its own independence, its own rôle in the world."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1971; Vol. 809, c. 1091.]
The creation therefore of a political unit—economic, monetary and political unification—is the goal which my right hon. Friend and Her Majesty's Government accept as that of the Community, and participation in it as the object of joining.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford put this drastically, when he said:
We are discussing no less than the union of Europe …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1971; Vol. 809, c. 1161.]
So, as a result of this debate, we are now in the clear as to the essential matter: economic and political union, however long it may take, whatever may be the course towards it, is the objective.
This makes a contrast with the atmosphere and background against which the former debate on this subject took place in the early years of the last decade. In those years it was possible for many people to say that it was essentially a discussion about wider trade areas, about lowering barriers to trade, about the extension of free trade, while the implications of union, above all of political union, were so remote and theoretical that for practical purposes they could be dismissed. That we cannot now do. We are now in the clear as to what the great debate is about.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Although my right hon. Friend said that it was possible for many people to think that, it was not possible for him to think that and he went round the countryside fighting for the cause of closer union in Europe. It is only recently that he has come to his present conclusion. Surely he himself was in the clear those many years ago.

Mr. Powell: I was making an observation that I would be prepared to apply to myself. I remember in those years I invited those to whom I spoke to concentrate on the effects on trade and the increase in the size of a common trading area. Not only in the case of some individuals but in the case of all of us—in the Community, as well as here—the perspective has shifted and sharpened in the intervening years. But I make no argument of this. Whatever a man's


past opinions, we are still under an obligation, if we are to be fair to ourselves, to address ourselves to what it is he is arguing in the present, in order to see whether it is sound or not and whehter or not we agree with it.
At least we now know, and there has been substantial agreement on it throughout this debate, as throughout the country, that if we desire to will the means, we must will the end. We now know what the end is that we have to will, in order to justify the means.
We now know the price that must be paid for any economic advantages of membership of the European Economic Community. I myself am far from sure that the balance of advantage of being participants in the European trading area outweighs in total the disadvantages of greater severance in trade from the rest of the world. I am also far from sure that there is any sound instinct behind the argument from dynamism. For I suspect the reasons which cause this contrast in growth and economic experience between our country and those with which the international statisticians so constantly compare us are so profound—that they are so deep in the nature of our society as well as our economy—that I am doubtful whether they would respond, as if by sympathetic magic, to association with the higher growth rate of the countries of the E.E.C. But whichever way the balance be, we now know the price. The price of any economic advantage is economic and political union. That is what we must will in order to secure those economic advantages, such as they be, and if there be such.
The same is true of the political advantages. One understands very well, above all perhaps in the British people, the aspiration to feel members of a great unit which exercises power and influence throughout the world. This is what many promise themselves. I think that is part of the emotional attraction for many of membership of the E.E.C. But we now know what its price is. We cannot have it, we cannot enjoy it, except at the price of economic and political unification. So we now know the price ticket on the articles which are offered to us as the gain from entry into the Community.
This insight, the establishment of this point, has resolved two conundrums with which this debate had far too long been bedevilled: the conundrum of federalism and the conundrum of sovereignty. The argument about federalism is really an irrelevance. If it be the case—and it is asserted and I believe substantially agreed by most hon. Members—that the goal and end is economic and political union, then it is pointless to argue now about whether the particular form of those institutions, whether the particular mode of that union, will be federal or confederal or whatever shape it may take. Certainly, I dismiss, as much as any marketeer, the talk about federation and federalism as a side issue, something barely relevant.
Then on the matter of sovereignty. There is here a confusion of language and of thought. Of course all sovereignty, like all freedom, is limited. Every nation is limited in what it can do—even the greatest—both by circumstance and by what it is, just as every individual is limited both by circumstance and by his own character in what he can achieve. We do not therefore deny that a nation is sovereign or that an individual is free. At several points in this debate it has been pointed out that Britain and other nations require alliances, that alliances are extremely desirable to them if they are to have any hope of maintaining their security, of enjoying peace, of surviving. That is true; but there is nothing new about this. We never doubted, when in past centuries this country contracted alliances for exactly that reason, that Great Britain in those days was sovereign. It is a fallacious use of language to deny that a person is free just because there are certain limits imposed by the nature of things upon the directions in which he can exercise his freedom. A nation may enter into contracts or associations or agreements and thereby voluntarily limit its freedom, as does an individual who signs a contract. But this is totally different from deliberately giving up for all time the freedom in future to take a decision. It is essentially different from the merging of sovereignty or "pooling" of sovereignty—the term which has frequently been used. In a political and economic union of Europe it would be contradictory to speak or think of


national sovereignty in the sense in which that exists at present.
One could usefully envisage the change which would be involved by considering what happened with the Scottish nation, when they were a nation in the political sense. They contracted a permanent union with England. From that time onwards Scottish sovereignty was merged indissolubly with the sovereignty of the new political unit which was thereby created. It is in those terms, if we are to be fair to ourselves, that we must envisage the loss of sovereignty as it is called—the effacement of British national sovereignty—as a consequence inherent in the achievement by the E.E.C. of its goal.

Mr. Robert Adley: I am not a Scot nor is my right hon. Friend, but does he suggest that Scotland has lost irreversibly by the decision it took?

Mr. Powell: I am not considering whether the Scottish people are better off or worse off as a result of the decision taken in 1707. I am pointing out that the Scottish nation as it was before 1707 lost, and was bound to lose its sovereignty by reason of forming a union with England and creating a new political entity.

Mr. Nicholas Scott: rose—

Mr. Peter Trew: rose—

Mr. Powell: I am not sure to whom to give way.

Mr. Trew: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Would he not agree that the break-up of the Central African Federation illustrated that political union is not irrevocable and indissoluble if the strains within it become intolerable?

Mr. Powell: Yes, I was coming to that matter, though I cannot imagine that the creation of a political entity which was found to be so intolerable that the member states broke it up is a commendation for what is before the House or is wisely brought into the present debate by those who favour entry into the Community. But my hon. Friend brings me directly to the next point I was going to make.

Mr. George Lawson: As a Scotsman, may I ask whether it is not

true that the coming together of England and Scotland at that time was very much to the advantage of both England and Scotland?

Mr. Powell: That may well be, but it does not follow that because one union was advantageous and practicable, therefore some other union is. I am merely pointing out to the House that the consequence of the development of the E.E.C., the consequence of what it is intended and necessary for us to do if we join it, is the loss of our national sovereignty, and that that is implicit.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) said yesterday
… it is a fundamental proposition of our constitution that no House of Commons can bind its successors."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January 1971; Vol. 809, c. 1108.]
That is so; but it is an aspect of the continuing national sovereignty of the United Kingdom of which this is the Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster does not go to Brussels and say, "Gentlemen, I must make it clear to you that it is a fundamental proposition of our constitution, which we do not intend to change, that no House of Commons can bind its successors". He does not think it incumbent upon himself, quite rightly, to say to them, "Because of this fundamental proposition of our constitution, anything in which we agree to participate when we join the E.E.C. can be freely overturned in each subsequent Parliament after each subsequent General Election". Of course not. He recognises—we ought all to recognise—that the nature of the act is intended to lead to an irreversible alienation of our separate sovereignty and the merging of our decisions in the decisions of a greater political whole. Many hon. Members have said, "Yes, but in that greater whole we shall enjoy influence, control"—that is a word which has been used more than once by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—"and even leadership"—though I find it always grits one's teeth a little when one hears the British, with their rather characteristic insensitivity to other nationalities, talking about becoming the leaders in a new European Economic Community. [Interruption.] I should not have thought there would be any


objection to my drawing attention to the fact that all the other peoples of the European Economic Community are as proud in their own way as we are and that there is a deep unrealism in our talking about "leading" the Community, because we, the British, deign to join it. There is no disrespect to our nationhood in that; there is only a recognition of other people's pride and characteristics.
Of what would this control, leadership, influence consist? It would, in terms of the present United Kingdom, be the influence which a minority of constituencies have upon the decisions of the Government and upon the decisions of this House. We, as approximately one-fifth of the enlarged Community, would enjoy—someone mentioned Scotland and I will mention it now—only such leadership, influence, control, as those who come from the 70-odd constituencies of Scotland exercise over the Government and policy of the United Kingdom. Our voice in the common policies, in the common government, in the common institutions, would be that of a section of an electorate.
The fundamental question which we have to put to ourselves is: can we conceive the people of this country, and, if we can, do we wish to do so, forming an element—a small minority element—in the electorate which would sustain the government and the institutions of this new political entity? My right hon. Friends full recognised, in their adoption of the Anglo-Italian Declaration of, I think, two years ago, that the sovereignty of the new political entity—the unitary sovereignty of the economic and political union which is the goal—implies democratic institutions, democratic control, and ultimate responsibility to the majority of the electorate of that unit. It is the will of the majority of that entire population upon which the policy of the economic and political unit would depend.
We have to decide—this is a profound question, which goes to the root of what we, the people of the United Kingdom, are—whether it is possible, and, if it is possible, whether it is desirable, that the United Kingdom should become part of the territory of a new political entity predominantly comprising the western

continent of Europe; and whether it is conceivable, and, if conceivable, whether it is desirable, that the people of the United Kingdom should become part of an electorate predominantly comprising the people of the countries of Western Europe. That is the basic question, and it cannot be answered by sarcastic references to "Little England". It cannot be answered by transposing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford did, the phrase "Little England" into "tight isolationist island". In order to answer it, we have to envisage profoundly what we as a nation are.
Of course we are a European nation in the sense that we share the common heritage of Europe. We share it in culture, in religion, and in what distinguishes European man from the other branches of the human race. In that we are European. We are as European in that sense as any other of the nations of Europe.
But it is not in that sense that we are posing this question. For we are talking about economic and political union. We are posing a question about political entity, about nationhood—the thing for which men, if necessary, fight and, if necessary, die, and to preserve which men think no sacrifice too great. In respect of our nationhood, then, I say that we are not a part of the continent of Europe. The whole development and nature of our national identity and consciousness has been not merely separate from that of the countries of the Continent of Europe but actually antithetical; and, with the centuries, so far from growing together, our institutions and outlook have rather grown apart from those of our neighbours on the continent. In our history, both recent and earlier, the principal events which have placed their stamp upon our consciousness of who we are, were the very moments in which we have been alone, confronting a Europe which was lost or hostile. That is the picture, that is the folk memory, by which our nation has been formed.
Over whole periods of our history, periods crucial to our development, it would be true to say that Britain has stood with her back towards Europe and her face towards the oceans and the continents of the world. Nor was this just in that brief period which we call


the British Empire; for it was, historically speaking, a brief period. In the very nature of our situation—a situation which has formed us through a thousand years into what we are—we are a people rather oceanic than continental, a people profoundly separated from the continent of Europe in what we are nationally and politically.
Almost everyone who has referred to this point in the debate has acknowledged, whatever explanation he has given for it, that people generally in this country are not merely, in the majority, hostile but increasingly hostile to the prospect of Britain joining the European Economic Community.

Sir T. Beamish: Not increasingly.

Mr. Powell: I thought that my hon. and gallant Friend pointed to the fact that the trend had increased. However, the matter is not of great importance for my present purpose. I think no one disputes that at present the preponderant feeling in this country is contrary to the proposition of entering the E.E.C. I believe—every hon. Member must form his own view on this—that the reason is a deep and wise instinct; that the people of this country, knowing—feeling, rather—who and what they are, cannot believe, cannot envisage, cannot bring themselves to wish, that they could be a part—a minority part—of the electorate of a political entity embracing virtually the whole of the continent of Western Europe.
I believe that that is their instinct. For myself, I believe that it is a right instinct. I believe that instinct speaks truth. That is why we in this House, the vocal organ of the British nation, ought to speak in this matter for that instinct. We ought to say to the Continent of Europe and to the E.E.C., "You want us to trade with you, to broaden and widen our intercourse with you? Gladly we do it; we will seize any opportunity to do it. You want us to join with you in alliance, to stand shoulder to shoulder with you against the dangers which threaten us both? We will do it; we do it already, and we will continue to do it. You ask us to merge the destiny of our own country with the destiny if it is to be, of a new political entity of Western Europe? We cannot. We will not." That is what we have to say in the name of the people of Britain.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: Not surprisingly, we have listened to a speech from the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) which runs coherently with the general argument that he has been preaching inside this House and outside it for a kind of economic society of the past rather than of the present or the future. To my mind his picture toward the end of his speech was of a Boadicean character appealing to the dark emotions of our land, just as I feel that he appeals to it on many occasions. His tough and century-old view about the organisation of economic society is also something of the past and not of today or the future.
I shall leave it to those who are to wind up the debate to deal with more detailed matters because I must be very brief, indeed. I want to deal with only three or four matters, and with some of the anxieties which all of us, whether supporting our entry into the Common Market or rejecting it, must have. Certainly anyone who has experience of our regions, and particularly of our development areas, must have in mind the problem of what kind of effect entry into the Common Market might have, good and bad, upon the problems that we face in areas with great difficulties, which have been with us for some considerable time. I have in mind areas like my own which face the problems of declining industries.
The second issue is that, as a democratic Socialist, I am concerned to see that we should not endanger the opportunities for radical advance here in Britain in particular and more generally in Europe, and I shall come back to this.
The third matter about which I want to be sure is that we are not endangering the contribution that we wish to make towards the wider developing world, the needs of which are infinitely greater than our own and which make such a strong moral, as well as practical call, upon us.
Like many other hon. Members, I have during the last five years had an opportunity of seeing more of how Europe has been developing than I ever had before. I think that all who have had the opportunity of close contact with Western Europe during this recent period have been astonished at the amount of development that has taken place and how misconceived some of our earlier


views were. This is certainly true of myself, and I believe it is of many others. Therefore, for myself, in spite of the anxieties which I share with many people, I regard the opportunity of joining the Community as an exciting one, and one which I hope we shall be able to accept.
What are the choices open to us? I find that even in this debate there are many of my hon. Friends, and some hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber, who still seem to think that one choice available to us is our ability to continue in this country more or less as we are. If there is one thing that is certain it is that that is not open to us. Our own conditions, whether we join or not, are changing, and are changing rapidly. The world is changing around us, and nowhere is this more clear than in our relationship with E.F.T.A.
I found it to some extent rather sad to note something of a campaign which appeared to be running at Question Time the other day showing a new-found interest in E.F.T.A., something which only a few people had shown before. Apparently an attempt was being made to suggest that the development of E.F.T.A. offered a real alternative to joining the Common Market; but, as has been made clear, many of the E.F.T.A. countries are themselves expecting to join the Common Market and, indeed, some of them notably Denmark, are very much more eager to do so than we are. It is extremely likely that, whatever success or failure we may have, Denmark will certainly want to join the E.E.C. Certainly it is true that E.F.T.A. could not be recreated after the negotiations in the form that it is today, and offers none of the possibilities which some hon. Members appear to think it might.
I agree that at one time many of us looked upon the Commonwealth as a practical alternative. This was in the minds of many hon. Members who were in the House shortly after the end of the war. There was great idealism about the possibilities. A great deal of that has gone in recent years, not because of actions in this House, but because of the inevitable actions of the Commonwealth countries themselves.
The older Commonwealth countries in particular have moved away in their trade and their connections. They were bound

to do so. They have rightly and inevitably made their new relationships clear with countries near to them. They have made their relationships clear with the economic and political Powers near to them, and it would be absurd to imagine that we could retain the kind of economic links which we might have thought possible immediately after the war. We were misled in that. We have only to look at Canada or Australia to find the changes to which I refer. Many other Commonwealth countries, in Africa, for example, are making their own arrangements with the Common Market, and good luck to them.
Some hon. Members have proposed a closer link with the United States, although that proposal has not been made during this debate as vigorously as it has on earlier occasions. For most of us, the greatest anxiety is lest, short of joining the Common Market, we might become a servile addition to the United States. The pressures from the United States are such that, if we were to attempt some kind of continued independent rôle, this is the greater danger. Many of us sincerely fear the danger which this might bring to industry and to our way of life, which are all too obvious to anyone, industrially or socially. We want a good relationship with the United States, but on something nearer equal terms than if we tried to maintain some pseudo-independent position.
I come back to the real anxieties and problems which I, like everyone else, must try to resolve. On the practical question of what effect joining would have upon regional development, some interesting suggestions have been made that, in the present negotiations, it might be possible to establish at least the framework of a much more effective and powerful regional fund in the Common Market which could be of value to us as to other developing areas within the Common Market.
From what I have seen—I have seen a good deal—of developments in the Common Market, I have been struck with the fact that, although many of them face comparable problems to ourselves of declining older industries and the movement of people into their countries, they have overcome those problems much more successfully than we have, even with the limited support of the Central Fund.
Although Southern Italy has particular problems, which are separate and distinct, but with regard to the industrial parts of the Common Market countries, it has made more progress than we have, in large measure because of the practical steps which they have taken within their own countries. It would add greatly to our success if we could knit ourselves together more closely and make fuller use of the experience of the Common Market in this respect.
I therefore hope that the Minister will say something about the kind of contribution he believes it may be possible to negotiate from within the Common Market for regional support. This will be a crucial matter for many people in this country.
The other question is that of radical measures and whether entry will inhibit or encourage the development of radical thought and opinion such as I, for one, wish to see. The fact that all our social democratic parties and trade unions in the Common Market countries are eager to stay in it and want us to join them affects me considerably. It is right and proper that, as a democratic movement, we should wish to join forces with them to help them to strengthen some of the democratic institutions which, they would agree, are still far from strong enough.
I am therefore eager to join forces with our colleagues in Western Europe, because they have been able to advance a great deal, as experience has shown. I want our movements also to make social change and experiment in management of industry which we discussed a little time ago in this House, and in which some of the most interesting developments have taken place in Common Market countries. I wish to ensure for ourselves an opportunity of sharing in those developments.
Joining the E.E.C. will not inhibit our making a contribution to the developing world. Indeed, our contribution in this sphere has not been what I would have liked it to have been in recent years and the contribution which has been made by the Community countries has, on balance, been greater and not less than ours. This is not a sign of a narrow, inward-looking Community, as I feared it might be. It is obvious that the opportunities from within the Common Market of expanding our contribution to the developing world will be greater than had we remained outside.
These are a few of the reasons why, on balance, we should join the Community and why I am depressed by some of what I would describe as the wholly negative and fearful arguments which have been adduced by some of my hon. Friends. I am an internationalist but not an impossibilist. I believe that the opportunities for advancement lie in our entering the E.E.C. I eagerly want to co-operate as quickly as possible with our colleagues in Europe because we have much to achieve by joining the E.E.C.
I hope that in the long run, and I appreciate that it may be a very long run indeed, there will emerge, and the Community will develop into, a new kind of Europe. That lies a long way ahead. I am not afraid of that development, as some people seem to be. We should work towards it.

8.37 p.m.

Mr. Ralph Howell: I am grateful for this opportunity to make my maiden speech in this important debate.
My constituency of North Norfolk has been represented in this House for the past six years by Mr. Bert Hazell, whose example as an excellent constituency hon. Member I shall do my best to follow. Mr. Hazell, who is President of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, has worked all his life to improve the lot of agricultural workers, and it is my intention to work for a better recognition of the essential work that they do.
North Norfolk is an area of great natural beauty. With its 60 miles of coastline and many more miles of Broads and waterways, we have a great heritage, which we intend to conserve. Many people throughout the country enjoy their holidays with us in our small seaside and Broads resorts and a great many people eventually decide to retire to North Norfolk.
The make-up of my constituency is almost entirely agricultural. Agriculture is the main source of our income. The holiday industry is also important and, as I say, we are an area with a great number of retired people.
The wage level in my constituency is the lowest of practically any area in England. This is because we are agricultural. I support our entry into the


E.E.C. because for far too long the rural areas of this country have been starved of money through the cheap food policy which we have been pursuing for more than 100 years. I look forward to a change in that state of affairs.
Let us be clear about what cheap food means. It means that farming people and everyone in the rural areas have wages far lower than they should have in comparison with the rest of the community. In my constituency, the average wage is about £8 a week less than the national average. We should welcome a change so that there can be more equity between town and country.
The argument used by so many people who are opposed to our entry into the Common Market has been based on the expected increase in food prices. I should have thought it obvious that we shall have increasing food prices in this country regardless of whether we enter the Common Market. The days of cheap food production here are fast receding, and we have only recently had reports on what we have done to the soil through starving our land of capital. Moreover, the farm workers themselves will settle the question of cheap food, for they are leaving the land at a frightening rate. To bring workers back to the land so as to maintain a high agricultural output, we shall have to pay proper wages. So there will be a lifting of food prices regardless of whether we enter the Common Market.
We ought to look over the fence to see what is going on in the Common Market instead of burying our heads, as so many hon. Members seem to do, not wanting to know how people are progressing in Europe. The French and the Germans have been paying realistic prices for food, and at the same time they are able to improve their growth factor much better than we can in this country, while producing cheaper articles as well. One has only to set out to buy a deep-freezer or a washing machine, for example, to find that they are beating us right across the board.
If it is right to go into the Common Market, it must be right for the whole community. I am convinced that, if we join the E.E.C., we, too, shall have better

growth through better methods and through a more modern approach in industry. The whole community can share in those advantages.
In this situation, one of the most important functions which the Government must take on, alongside their attempt to negotiate entry, is to explain fully to the British people what it is all about. I feel that we have failed miserably over the last seven or eight years since we began talking about it to put over to the country what the advantages of joining are. We have concealed quite a lot or just failed to bother to find out the facts. Only last week, I went to the Library to ask for comparative figures of pensions in this country and in all the Common Market countries, but the Library was unable to provide me with those figures. The latest available figures, I believe, were for August, 1969, and they were not in a suitable form to give any reasonable comparison.
We must be able to tell all sections of the community, and pensioners in particular, that they will not suffer at all by our entry, and that, indeed, by the increased wealth which we shall attain by joining, they will be better off. Before it can be sensible to expect them to support entry, we must be able to tell them that.
We should concentrate on the broader issues rather than talk only of economic advancement. The greatest single thing that has happened in the world since the war has been the fact that France and Germany are now working together instead of snarling at each other and fighting each other as they have done over the past hundred years. Is not that what it is all about? Will not the security of Britain be greatly enhanced if we join? There can be no defence of this country which is not achieved in co-operation with the rest of Europe. That is why I am so sure that it is essential that we should work closely with our neighbours. Joining the Common Market is nothing more than working and co-operating with our neighbours.
I ask the Government to do more to put over the advantages and the real issues. That is important, for much as I support entry I cannot participate in dragging this counry reluctantly and blinkered into taking this tremendous step. I look forward to the time when


the Government have explained the advantages to the people clearly and in detail. Then I hope that we shall be able to go forward into Europe, to accept the challenge, and to benefit by it generally.

8.45 p.m.

Dr. John Gilbert: It is my very pleasant duty to congratulate the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Ralph Howell) on his maiden speech. Though I do not agree with every point he made, his obvious concern for the less-well-off members of his constituency and his knowledge of the circumstances that affect their daily life will make him a very worthy successor to Mr. Bert Hazell, and we look forward to hearing from him frequently in the future.
The economic arguments for or against our entry into the E.E.C. have been rehearsed enough. For the purpose of tonight's debate I am prepared to accept the economic case, to accept the arguments and the guesswork, the known costs and the charming optimism we often hear about the benefits that are supposed to follow. Let us accept all that. Let us concentrate on the real nature of the Community which we are being asked to join.
It is undeniably not just an economic arrangement. Thousands of directives, by all of which we should be bound, will affect a whole range of facets of our lives. Those we must accept. Others are being discussed which may be in force before we arrive in the Community. Those we shall have to accept as well. They cover everything from the size of lorries, the harmonisation of education, and company law to the way that beer is to be brewed. It is high time the Government came clean with the country and made it quite clear that this is not just an economic question. All sorts of such considerations affecting our daily lives will be burdened upon us as soon as we enter the Community. It is no good the Minister for Trade and Industry making regulations to have smaller lorries on the roads. When we get into the Community we shall have to have bigger lorries whether we like it or not.
There are long-term political considerations to be borne in mind. We have been fairly asked by those in favour of entry to consider the long-term economic aspects. It is therefore only right that we

should consider the long-term political considerations. The first thing we notice about the Community is how undemocratic its present institutions are. The proponents of adherance say that that will change, that we shall have a European Parliament and it will be all right. Let us accept that. But if we have a European Parliament there are certain matters to which every hon. Member should pay very serious attention. If there is an effective European Parliament with an effective European Government and a European Cabinet, various things would inexorably flow from those developments. We shall have to have European political parties and European election campaigns. We shall have to have political propaganda organised on a European basis in between General Elections.
Where does this country fit into the European scheme of politics? The first words I have to say on the subject may give some comfort to hon. Members opposite, but I warn them not to crow too soon. The first thing that is quite clear is that the prospects of ever getting a social democratic majority in a European Parliament are virtually nil. We have only to look at the statistics at election after election since the war. At the last set of elections, for both the Six and the Ten, the figures were as follows. The total number that voted in the last elections in the Six was 98,913,000. Those voting for Social Democratic parties amounted to just over 25 million, less than 26 per cent. of the combined electorates. If we include the Ten the figures go up to a total of those exercising a franchise of 133,000,000. Those voting for parties affiliating to the Socialist International numbered 39 million, even allowing for padding the figures in the case of Italy, where there is one Socialist Party of doubtful allegiance to the Socialist International. About 29 per cent. of the votes cast at the last elections throughout the Six and the Ten were for Social Democratic parties as we understand them.
For the Liberal Party—and heaven only knows why the Liberals want to go into Europe—the figures are even more pathetic. They may not have much chance of forming a majority in this country, but their chance of forming one in Europe is negligible.
Let us now turn to the position of the British Conservative Party. One looks at the spectrum of European political parties to try to find its equivalent. It is difficult to find one. Indeed, looking around the world it is difficult to find an equivalent of the British Conservative Party. The world may be all the better for that, but I do not want to dwell on the point.
The fact is that the British Conservative Party will have to make its alliances with the Christian Democratic parties of Europe. As soon as one mentions that fact one is brought head on against one of the most serious differences between political life on the Continent and political life in this country. It underlines immediately the fact that political parties in Europe are organised predominantly, though not exclusively, along lines of religious division. This, mercifully, is not the case here. One does not know what is the religion of most of one's fellow Members of this House, because it is unimportant and irrelevant. Yet one can see in the politics of Europe the violence and the degree of civil strife that is directly traceable to this fundamental difference in the way their political parties are organised.
Let us not assume that parties or people in Europe have a monopoly of religious intolerance or political violence. One has only to look across to Northern Ireland to see that these things can affect us in this country as well. But the fact is that it is only in Ulster that we have in this country political parties organised on a religious basis, and any development that would lead to a change in the fundamental alignment of political parties in this country on the basis of religious divisions could only be deplored by anyone with the health of the social fabric of our country at heart.
We are constantly being asked what are the alternatives to going into Europe. It is put to us that either we go into Europe or we are dominated by the Americans. It sounds terrible. It sounds as though one were sitting in a cell with the option of poisoning or shooting oneself. There might be a third course—that of walking out of an open door. It does not sound dramatic but the results would be much more beneficial. There are many things in terms of increasing functional co-operation with the E.E.C.,

the extension of negotiations in the Kennedy Round, co-operation through U.N.C.T.A.D., reducing non-tariff barriers to trade, political support for the decisions of the United Nations—all sorts of developments of this sort which are not dramatic but which in the long run provide a real prospect for peace and economic advancement for Britain.
Those of us who oppose this political suggestion of a merger with Europe are not Little Englanders. We resent suggestions that we need lectures in internationalism. We seek closer relations equally with the Communist countries and with the other capitalist countries. Above all we seek closer relations with the developing world whose people do not share the economic bounty that we enjoy.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. Spencer Le Marchant: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for having called me. I will be brief. It is impossible not to be controversial in this debate. Anyone who has sat throughout these two days of debate would not be able to make a remark that would not be controversial to someone, and I bear in mind that in the next few days I must perforce away to Banbury and that on the way back to High Peak I have to pass very close to Wolverhampton.
The High Peak—like the constituencies of the other maiden speakers in this debate—is beautiful and entirely different. I was somewhat upset last night when the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes) discriminated against my sheep. He spoke about Welsh, Scottish and North Pennine sheep. I draw his attention to the fact that in the High Peak the Pennines start and that my sheep are every bit as fine.
The High Peak, lying as it does in a National Park, has had two hon. Members recently who have served it well. Lord Molson was, indeed, in advance of the times in his efforts for preservation, and Mr. Peter Jackson also loved the country and did very well for his constituency and was a good Member.
I shall not speak about the economic side of the issue. I have long believed that the larger market that our entry would bring would be to our benefit. I want to speak rather of the Community


—a Community that is well worth while to join, a Community that is working well and a Community that we can improve by our contribution. Having been to Brussels, I saw and heard a different story from the one we usually read and hear so much. We read and hear only of disagreements, not of a Community that is really working effectively. I believe that it is working effectively.
The Six have had the essential objective of the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their people. The common financing which is levied upon the members has worked well. The European Coal and Steel Community Fund and the European Social Fund have done a great deal for the benefit of their people in rehabilitating workers who have had to change their jobs. Currently, this Fund is running at £25 million a year but the Commission has asked to put it up to £100 million a year. This money is spent not by those who put the money into the kitty but by those who really need it.
The Community has helped the backward regions of the Six. It has dropped its normal rules, in certain measure, in agriculture, transport and the general field of competition in favour of regional development. It has set up an investment bank and now has proposals for a Community regional development fund with loan guarantees and interest rebates. The Community has given an impressive amount of money to areas outside its own regions, and there is now the new idea of the generalised tariff preference for every developing country, something in which we should be proud to participate.
I turn to the mutual help which is part of the Treaty of Rome. The Community has extended this mutual help fund for those in balance of payments difficulties and 2,000 million dollars is proposed for loans of up to one year and 2,000 million dollars for loans of up to five years.
It is not a rigid Community which sticks always to the letter of the law. There is the example of the value-added tax. This was due to come in through out the Community in 1970, but that was not possible because two countries could not introduce it by that time, and so Belgium was given an extra year and Italy an extra two years.
Another example of the way in which the Community helps various members

when they need it is that of 1969 when there was devaluation in France and revaluation in Germany. Under the agricultural laws, those countries would have been forced to change their prices immediately, and that would have meant much higher food prices in France and lower prices in Germany, which would have cut the farmers' wages. The Community did not enforce those laws and gave those countries two years in which to make the changes.
This is a Community which is working, a Community which we should be proud to join. I wish my right hon. and learned Friend every success in the necessarily difficult negotiations which must lie ahead.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Walters: I have only a few minutes. I should like first to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Le Marchant) on his maiden speech. I am sure that we shall hear many more speeches of similar high quality from him.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) made a brilliant and lucid speech. He is a brilliant and lucid debater. But that does not mean that he always reaches the right conclusions. He did not reach the right conclusion this afternoon. When he said that if the Community were to be anything, it must inevitably be a federal union, and so we had to decide whether that was what we wanted to join, he was not right. What we have to decide is whether the Community is worth joining as it stands and whether the Treaty of Rome is worth signing as it stands. It may be that this will lead to the Federal union of Europe. Such an end might be desirable and some hon. Members on both sides may wish to see it happen, but that is not necessarily what will follow and that is not the choice which we are facing at this moment.
Speaking outside the House, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) referred to our possible entry as a unique decision calling for a unique mechanism, a referendum. There can always be arguments about how far any political decision is unique. Britain's decision to declare war on Germany in 1939 was very important and had important consequences as my hon. and gallant


Friend the Member for Lewis (Sir T. Beamish) rightly said. The momentous decision to give independence to India, which finally ended the era of Empire, was a great decision. Both were taken without a referendum.
A referendum would be most unlikely to produce a true reflection of public opinion on the Common Market, because, having obtained agreement in Brussels, the Government would be almost certainly bound to put their weight behind the "Yes" vote. In that case, the matter would almost certainly be decided by popular attitudes to Government policy as a whole and not to the specific issue of the Common Market. If a vocal and powerful section of the Labour Party were to oppose it, the character of a vote of confidence would be even more pronounced.
The negative reason for joining Europe, and it is no less valid for being negative, is simple—there is no sensible long-term political and economic alternative for Britain. The Commonwealth alternative has always been substantially bogus and it is rather ironic that some of its most ardent proponents are to be found among those who, except in the context of an anti-European alternative, have nothing but adverse things to say about the Commonwealth. N.A.F.T.A. is a non-starter for one very good reason, that not a single serious American politician wants it, and should this not be so—which it is—then it would be undesirable because it would lead to a total economic dependence on the United States, which I believe no Member of the House would wish to see and which nobody in this country would wish to see.
The positive reasons why Britain should join are, as they always have been, overwhelmingly political. First, Europe needs Britain. That has always been the case, though it may have been a little obscured of late. The recent major initiative of the West German Government toward Russia and Eastern Europe, the Ostpolitik, has usefully emphasised this need. It is both wise and understandable that the Government of Herr Brandt should wish to improve relations with the Soviet Union. But inevitably there are inherent risks in such a policy, and British membership of the European

Community would minimise such risks and would provide a crucial guarantee of stability. Britain needs Europe. I cannot go into the economic reasons now. But British participation is necessary politically so that this country can make its most effective contribution at this moment in our history.
Inevitably at present, the United States and the Soviet Union dominate world affairs. My right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) referred to this yesterday. Eventually they will be joined by China. Alone, Britain can do little to influence and moderate world events. Other countries in Europe can do even less.
The right hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) was less than fair about the proposals for co-ordinating foreign policies of member countries. An enlarged Community would transform the situation. I only wish that there were a European policy in the Middle East at present. A coherent European foreign policy could arise and, eventually, a common defence policy. At that stage, Western Europe would be able to influence world events again, independently of the super-Powers, and Britain would be able to contribute its unique experience and influence. Only through a united Europe can we perform this vital task.
I hope that the European negotiations which are being conducted so skilfully by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will succeed, that we shall have the chance to join the Community and that we shall grasp it.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. Denis Healey: This has been an interesting and often exciting, debate which has certainly not been characterised by a rigid adherence to party solidarity. Most of the views held at present by different groups of British people have been well expressed by speakers from both sides of the House in the last two days, not only by their most prominent representatives in the House but also by some very able and eloquent maiden speakers. I congratulate, particularly, the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Ralph Howell) and the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Le Marchant) on their contributions to the debate.
There has been only one necessary voice missing, that of the Chancellor. I must add my protest to the many others that, on an issue in which the cost of entry in terms of budgetary resources, foreign exchange, the rôle of sterling as a reserve currency and the possibility of a currency union are among the central problems at stake, the Minister responsible for those problems has chosen neither to speak nor to listen to our debate. I hope that the Chancellor of the Duchy will comment on some of the points which have been made, especially those by my right hon. Friends about the relevance of sterling's rôle as a reserve currency, to the negotiations in which he is engaged.
It has been pointed out by several hon. Members in the past two days that the views of many hon. Members of Parliament have changed, in both directions, in the 12 years since we first began debating Britain's relationship to the Common Market. It is odd to reflect that the present Deputy Prime Minister, when Paymaster-General, expressed the view in 1958 that neither Britain nor any other European country outside the Treaty of Rome could for political or economic reasons accept the concept of a Customs Union. It is interesting to note that in the last two days no hon. Member has raised objections to the concept of a Customs Union. It is a bogey which has no terrors for us now, and even those who oppose the idea of joining the Common Market have not raised the difficulties attendant on the creation of a Customs Union as a major problem which is facing the country.
For many years both the major parties and the Liberal Party have supported in principle entry into the Common Market. They have supported the negotiations for entry, and they have hoped that those negotiations would succeed. But all the parties also have believed that a final decision must await the terms which are reached in the negotiations. All the parties have accepted that the terms might be unacceptable, that the cost of entry might prove to be too high. This is a reasonable attitude because, if the costs were too high, they could inflict economic damage on Britain which would ruin all hope of long-term economic benefits either for Britain or for the Common Market as a result of our adherence. Similarly, if the terms

were unacceptable and the cost too high, undoubtedly there would be a revulsion among the British people against the idea of entry which would rob both Britain and the Community as a whole of the political benefits that we now hope to obtain.
We now know the major issues in the negotiations on which the acceptability or not of the final agreement will hang. First there are the agreements which are reached on Commonwealth sugar and on the treatment of New Zealand's exports. Above all, there is the nature of the agreement on the size and phasing of the net cost falling on the United Kingdom as a result mainly of the common agricultural policy and the budgetary provisions on which the Six have recently agreed.
Those who favour entry, as I do, are often asked to say what price would be acceptable. We have been asked it in this debate. We are unable to answer, for two obvious reasons. In the first place, many variables will be involved in the final package and, until we see how they relate one to another, we shall not be able to form a fair estimate of the real cost falling on Britain as a result of the agreement as a whole. We might gain in some areas what we lose in others.
There is another reason which is too rarely recognised. It is that the cost which Britain will be able to afford when the negotiations are reaching their completion will depend critically on Britain's economic strength and prospects at that time. If we are weak, we shall require a lower cost and shall find it more difficult to persuade the Six to give it to us. If we are strong, we shall be able to accept a higher cost for entry.
The Common Market is often described as a cold shower which will bring our industries into a more healthy state of mind. But a cold shower which is bracing to a healthy man can be fatal to a man suffering from diabetes or tuberculosis. For that reason the development of the British economy in the next 12 months is likely to be critically important, not only to the acceptability of the terms but to the question whether agreement is reached at all during this year on the terms of entry.
I believe that the proposals made by the Chancellor of the Duchy as to the


phasing, the size and the net cost falling on to Britain as a result of the common budget make sense for Britain now and, as Sir Con O'Neill explained clearly in his presentation of these proposals to the Community, the Community should find them wholly reasonable. But if the economy deteriorated and if its prospects looked much worse, then the question whether we should accept these terms would be in doubt.
None of us who favour entry believes that all our troubles will be over once we join the Common Market. None of us believes that the Common Market in its present form is perfect. There are many aspects of the Common Market which all of us would wish to improve, not least the common agricultural policy. I add my voice to those who suggested that it is surprising and in the long run unacceptable that the proceeds in the common budget should be devoted exclusively to the agricultural development of other peoples. There is a strong case for extending the scope of the common budget to cover, for example, the development of regionally depressed areas throughout the Community. Again, if the Community were prepared to accept such an extension of the budget, the net cost falling on Britain might well be less and the form of the contribution which we should accept might well be different. Many leading members of the Governments and Oppositions among the Six would agree with us about those issues.
Much, and I think probably most, of the last two days' debate has not been concerned with the terms of entry but, as the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) pointed out, with the principle whether we should want to join this type of Community on any terms at all. The main problem which has worried the opponents of entry on both sides of the House has been its effect on the identity of Britain, however this is expressed—in terms of worry about our freedom of action, worry about our sovereignty, worry about the Community developing supranational powers or moving into a federation or into a political, economic and financial union.
This worry was most eloquently expressed by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South West. Once again, he erected a glittering edifice of argument

by systematic logical extrapolation from a phrase in a speech. Having dazzled us with this display of pure reason, he then appealed to the dark instincts of primeval blood and earth. This is a style of his—beating the ideological tom-tom—with which we are all familiar, and it never fails to assemble the tribes.
May I put to the right hon. Gentleman that the whole style of his argument—the way he presented it and the instincts to which he appealed—was peculiarly Continental rather than British in tone. He would find them in the works of Nietzsche or Charles Maurras. He will not find many precedents in Britain, except perhaps in Mr. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who is not very much read these days. I cannot help feeling that in the perspective of history his approach will seem no more relevant to the politics of his age, and no less relevant, than theirs.
My real complaint about the right hon. Gentleman—and about many other speakers on both sides who reflected the same worries about the Common Market—is that he is hypnotised by words and ignores the facts. There was a strong case for raising these worries about sovereignty when the Treaty of Rome was first drafted, because then all we had to go on were the words of the Treaty, which included all these terrible commitments to create a union of one sort and another. But now we have 12 years of experience of the Common Market to go on. We know how it works. We know how it develops and how it takes decisions, and the reality is very different from the words which frighten so many hon. Members.
The European Economic Community at present is a customs union for industrial goods and a managed market for agricultural products. It has very little supranational about it, and what it has about it that is supranational in form is always ignored by its members with impunity when their major national interests are at stake. As my right hon. Friend pointed out earlier today, neither Germany nor France had the right to change their parities two years ago without first negotiating with their fellow signatories of the common agricultural policy about the impact of their changes in parity on that, but they did not do so, and they did not do so with impunity.
What matters in the Common Market at present are the views of national Governments. It is true that there is a valuable dialogue between national Governments and an international or supranational Commission. Whereas each national Government has a veto in this dialogue, the Commission has none, and the Governments always have the last word.
What do the Governments of the most important countries in the Common Market say about the bogeys of federation and supranationalism? The German Chancellor, Chancellor Brandt, told us in London last year that
supranationalism is something for the next generation to decide, or the generation after that.
That is the view of the German Government. M. Pompidou, M. Schumann and M. Debré have made the same points for the French Government in many speeches on many occasions.
Personally, I do not think supra-nationalism is a bad thing. I would like to see the Community developing towards a different type of relationship from that which exists at present. But the one thing that is certain is that there will be no supra-nationalism, no federation, no loss of identity, unless all the member Governments agree. This problem has yet to be decided, and we shall play our part in deciding it when we are in. When I say "we", I mean not just the British Government but the British House of Commons. It is inconceivable that the British Government, or any Government which is now a member of the Community, would seek to reach a decision with the other members of the Community on the surrender of national rights without first consulting its Parliament and making certain its Parliament agreed.
The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East made one point with which I very much agreed. It was that over the centuries Britain as an island and the countries of Continental Europe have drifted apart from one another in many respects—in respect of interests, culture and temperament. One of the differences is in respect of our legal traditions. I believe that most of the things which worry Members of this House arise from a historic difference in our approach to juridical commitment arising out of the different ways in which

our legal traditions have developed over the centuries. We regard a juridical commitment as a minimum that we guarantee to achieve; many of the other countries regard it as a maximum at which they aim. They regard it as a guiding star rather than as a route-map.
The truth of what I have said can be seen if one compares the behaviour of the member Governments of the Community since 1958, and one another's reaction to that behaviour, with the actual words of the Treaty. The European Economic Community is not now a federation or a supra-national organisation. It will move only slowly in that direction, if at all, and will move only with the consent of its member Governments and Parliaments.
There is another misunderstanding which has dogged many of the speeches in this debate. It relates to the degree of national sovereignty we have now. Britain is not a suburb of Wolverhampton spinning through outer space and separated by a million light years from all other human kind. Britain is part of an international community which has shrunk enormously in our lifetime, and will shrink even further in the next 10, 20 or 30 years. We have contacts with others, commitments to others, for the sake of our diplomacy, our economic prosperity and our defence. All those commitments limit our freedom to that extent.
For two generations at least it has been true to say, and has often been said in this House, that when America sneezes economically we catch cold. Yet we have no control over America's state of health. We depend on the Arab world, on Libya, and on Nigeria for our oil. As a result it is possible that within the next few weeks thousands of Englishmen, Welshmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen will be out of work because 2s. a gallon is added to the price of oil.
But nearly half of our trade is now with Europe. The percentage of our trade with Europe is certain to grow steadily as the years pass. We have a chance to influence the climate that determines that part of our trade if we join the Community.
Britain has not suffered much by exclusion from the Community in its first 12 years of existence, for three reasons. First, because the Community has been concerned mainly with the reduction of


tariffs and has had a very low external tariff against the outside world. Secondly, because during that 12 years world trade has been expanding fairly regularly. Thirdly, and very important, because for almost the whole of that period we have said we wanted to join the Common Market and therefore the Six have taken special care for our own interests. But the next 12 years could be very different.
In the first place the Six want to deepen their community and tackle other barriers to trade than tariffs. They want to move towards closer unity in economic and financial matters. In the second place—a fact that has not been mentioned once in the House in the last few days—there is a real risk that world trade will shrink in the next ten years because the enormous surplus that is being built up by Japan is not now being adequately accommodated in imports by the developed world. Last year we saw the attempts in the United States to produce a barrier between United States and trade with the outside world because of Japan. I hope that it will be defeated this year. But there is no doubt that the pressure of Japanese exports on the developed world creates a real risk of the barriers going up round all the major trading communities.
If in such a situation we are in none of the major world trading communities, the prospects for us could be very serious indeed. In this situation we shall lose all influence with the Common Market as it faces these new problems if we once say that we do not want to join—as indeed the United States has practically lost all its influence. This is why American ambassadors complain every week in Brussels about various aspects of the Common Market on agriculture, on association with the applicant territories, and so on.
There is one further new possible factor in the political sphere. I do not say that any of these things are certain; it is possible that none may happen, but I think that they are probable. There is another possible and, indeed, probable factor in the political sphere. The United States may reduce its commitments in Europe during the coming years and may simultaneously seek bilateral agreements with the Soviet Union A Europe of which we are not a member

could move in very dangerous directions if we are not involved in the way in which it responds to these new political factors.
This in my opinion, is where the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) and by another of my hon. Friends this afternoon about the nuclear future of Europe is so important. I have not time to go into that question more deeply, but one of the many illusions of this Government—which was exploded within a few months of their taking office—was that they could buy their way into the Common Market by offering a nuclear alliance with France. Despite M. Pompidou's words, it is crystal-clear that France has no intention of pooling or integrating its nuclear forces with anyone. The last thing that France will ever integrate is its nuclear forces—not with America not with Britain, not with anybody in the world so long as her leaders are men such as they are today.
I believe that after Suez in 1956, the biggest mistake that Britain made in her foreign policy since the Second World War, and in which both parties share complicity, was not going to the Messina Conference out of which the Common Market grew. If we had gone there, I think that we could have helped to avoid some of the difficulties which we now face.
As I said, we have not so far suffered very much from exclusion, and we had no real chance to negotiate entry so long as General de Gaulle was alive. I thought that it was a great mistake to apply for entry as long as General de Gaulle was alive, because it was certain that he would veto our application. But we now have a second chance, and we must take it. I believe that all the members of the Common Market want us to take this chance, and I hope that this includes the French Government as well.
As has been pointed out, this debate has created some very unusual alliances. This is inevitable, because almost every possible view about the Common Market is held in the two main parties on both sides of the House. I share Dr. Johnson's reluctance to dispute the precedence between one Conservative Member and another. But, if I had to choose, on the whole I should much prefer to be aligned with the right hon. and learned


member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) than with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West.
But what is far more important than alliances in this House is the attitude of our friends outside this country Every party—Conservative, Liberal, Socialist—inside the Common Market, after 12 years' experience, thinks that it was right to join and that it is right to go on. Some parties believe that it is too good to let us in. But all the Socialist parties and trade unions inside the Common Market want faster, not slower, progress towards unity, and they al want Britain and the other applicants in the Common Market. Above all, this is true of the German Government under Chancellor Brandt, because, ever since he got into power, he has made it clear that his Ostpolitik would work only if the Common Market were enlarged.
I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends, who have made eloquent and impressive speeches against entry, to consider the impact of our exclusion on our best friends in Europe as well as on our future in the world.

9.34 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): We have had a wide-ranging debate with many effective and occasionally, and I think rightly so, passionate speeches but, if I may say so, perhaps no speech has done more to draw all the threads together than that of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). I was surprised at only one item in his speech. We do not think that he should admit any more mistakes that he made while in office.
We have had five maiden speeches of a high quality from my hon. Friends the Members for Bodmin (Mr. Hicks), Clapham (Mr. William Shelton), Luton (Mr. Simeons), Norfolk, North (Mr. Ralph Howell) and The High Peak (Mr. Le Marchant). They can all look back on their first speeches—I hope that they will be the first of many—with legitimate pride not only in the fact that they have made helpful and constructive contributions, but that they have spoken on a matter of historic importance to us all. I hope that I may have some opportunity as we go along to refer to some of the points they made.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, and as many speakers in this debate have acknowledged, successive Governments have deployed this case for full British participation in the drive for European unity, and that means accession to the European Community, provided we can find fair terms. There are, of course, many right hon. and hon. Members who have shown that their fears outweigh their hopes, but no change, not even change for the better, can be accomplished without difficulty. That is why we attach so much importance to the transitional arrangements, and why they loom so large in the negotiations, but it is right in a debate of this kind that we should look at the wider horizon.
Looking further ahead we must recognise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) said, that the world is not going to stay the same, whether we are in the Community or outside it. It really is no good living, as I think some right hon. and hon. Members would like to do, in blinkers in a world of change. If, as a nation, we are not to drop out of the main stream of the world's life, we must be prepared to change and adapt our methods. All through history—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) is a great historian—this has been one of the main sources of our strength. I think this debate has shown that the House as a whole recognises that in the medium term and in the long term the economic and political case for full British participation in the Community of Europe is very strong, provided we can get terms which allow us to take full advantage of the opportunities offered.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), in his characteristically powerful speech, showed that these opportunities are both economic and political. They are both, after all, sides of the same coin. If the economic arguments are balanced in some Members' view in the short term, and I do not believe they are in the long term, the political advantages are overwhelming, and I do not use the word "political" in just the sense of prestige. I mean the ability to protect British defence and trade interests, and to maintain peace and stability in a world of change.
On defence, we are already deeply committed with the Six in the framework of the Alliance. We are already involved in major collaborative efforts such as the M.R.C.A., with which the right hon. Member for Leeds, East was so much concerned, and we all have much to gain by intensifying this process. There is nothing in the Treaty about defence, and it is not a subject of negotiation, but, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his opening speech at Luxembourg on 30th June, it is right that Europe should assume a greater share of responsibility for its own defence. My hon. Friends the Members for Clapham (Mr. Shelton), and Westbury (Mr. Walters) developed this point, and I think that they are right.
It is against that background, and against the prospect of a greater degree of unity in Europe and a greater degree of influence for Europe in the world, that we must look at possible ways in which the Alliance can be strengthened. I do not go all the way with what the right hon. Member for Leeds, East said about nuclear weapons. This matter was referred to also by the hon. Members for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) and Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris). We did not, as a Government, seek to try to buy our way into the Community by offering the French an Anglo-French nuclear alliance. There is no truth in that. Britain possesses nuclear weapons, and so does France. We hope that both will soon be members of the same community, and it would be senseless to rule out the posibility of further collaboration in the future in these spheres, but it is not a subject of the negotiations.
As I tried to say in opening, it is the Government's view, and I think that it was the view of the majority of hon. Members who spoke, that we should grow towards political and economic union. I was grateful for the speech of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. At least he is satisfied now that we are in the clear about the great debate—but we should have been in the clear from the outset, because large numbers of us, including the right hon. Gentleman, voted in support of the statement which the Leader of the Opposition made on 2nd May, 1967; he also voted against the Amendment which suggested that

there might be, among other things, loss of sovereignty.
Of course, consistency is not a virtue, but at least my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker Smith) have been consistent throughout, while the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has changed his mind. He may be right. Personally, I think that the right hon. Gentleman was correct in the article on the defence of Europe which he contributed to the R.U.S.I. Journal of February, 1968.
Talking of the need to bring together Europe's defence policy, he said:
It would be idle to pretend that this presence"—
That is, Britain's military presence on the Continent, which he supported—
is not closely relevant to Britain's aspiration to join in the economic co-operation of Western Europe, which has found expression in our recent application to join the European Economic Community. The will to permanent economic co-operation between the Western nations and their impulse to combine in the fields of space, atomic energy and heavy industry, not to mention arms production, have inevitable overtones of defence. Political unity is inseparable from defence unity, and to move towards the one is to move towards the other.
And that is what I believe.
I cannot, perhaps, describe my right hon. Friend's speech with so much eloquence as did the right hon. Member for Leeds, East, but I think that his whole philosophy is summed up in one phrase that he used: "I believe instinct speaks truth." That is a rather primitive instinct. I believe that it was a wise Frenchman who said that men of reason have endured and men of passion have lived. I think that the British people want to do both.
At any rate, let there be no doubt about what is at stake. Western Europe will not regain her influence or even retain her industrial independence unless we work together. That applies not only to foreign and defence policy but also to economic, monetary and financial questions. The right hon. Members for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever), Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) and Stepney (Mr. Shore) have all spoken about these issues, although their previous Cabinet solidarity has frayed a little, at least at the Stepney edges. That


right hon. Gentleman has not admitted his mistake in voting for the statement of 2nd May, 1967.
As the right hon. Members for Cheetham and Stechford acknowledged, monetary questions and the rôle of sterling are not part of the negotiations. They are what the right hon. Gentleman called the X factor, and they are certainly a matter of concern to us and to the Members of the Community.
Some right hon. Gentlemen have been less than fair to my colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was envisaged that I should wind up this debate, and no one, so far as I know, raised any objection to that. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer had my job, he spoke on these matters, in so far as they bore upon the negotiations, and I am now doing the same. We are, of course, in close consultation, and what I have to say, I think that he will agree.
At the outset of the negotiations of June last year, the Belgian Foreign Minister, M. Harmel, said that the Community would wish to have discussions with us in due course on the economic, monetary and financial problems related to accession to the Community. It was made plain that these matters were not to be the subject of negotiation but only of discussion, and we have expressed the view, with which the Six have been in agreement, that the value of such discussions will be greatly enhanced if they can be conducted in an atmosphere of mutual candour, and this means that they should be confidential.
In broad terms, it is already well-known that we shall be exchanging views upon the future of sterling in this context, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Dodds-Parker) said last night—he speaks with some authority on these matters—there are difficulties, which I am sure the House will understand, in open negotiations, in which every thought of the parties is immediately publicised.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham, the right hon. Member for Stechford and others dwelt on the so-called problem of sterling. Apart from whether or not it is directly involved in the negotiations, I do not believe that there is the sort of problem of which they have spoken, though there is certainly

some danger of sterling being seen out of its true perspective.
Sterling's international rôle has been declining significantly over the past decade or more in the way that has been described by the right hon. Member for Stechford. To give one example between 1955 and 1970 the proportion of sterling in world official reserves declined by one half, from 14 per cent. to 7 per cent. The trading use of sterling has been declining for some time and is still declining. In spite of this, because of the adaptability of the City of London our invisible earnings have nevertheless risen rapidly.
It is clear to most observers that the reserve rôle of sterling is no longer of advantage to Britain. Indeed, the reverse is more easily argued, and these trends in the trading and reserve uses of sterling will probably continue. In the long term, the Government do not propose to stand in the way of these developments.
I remind those who speak about the need to shed the reserve rôle of sterling that this would require more than a unilateral decision on the part of this country. I cannot emphasise too strongly, as the House will appreciate, that other interests, notably those of sterling holders, as well as the need for adequate international liquidity, are involved and would have to be taken fully into account. The right hon. Gentleman made this perfectly clear when he pointed out that there can be no question of our repudiating our responsibilities.

Mr. Arthur Latham: rose—

Mr. Rippon: I have a lot still to say.

Mr. Latham: I have been listening with some interest for some elaboration of a much earlier remark which the right hon. and learned Gentleman made. As this elaboration has not yet come, and considering the time, I thought that I would ask him this question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Sit down."] The right hon. and learned Gentleman earlier spoke of economic arguments and then of overwhelming political considerations. He went on to define what he meant by "political". He has defined certain matters. As I am extremely worried because what he said and what my right hon. Friend said


seemed to paint such a gloomy picture if we were to stay out of the Common Market, I should like him to define what he meant by "overwhelming" because—[Interruption.]—we fear that we may go in regardless of the terms.

Mr. Rippon: I am sorry that I allowed the hon. Gentleman to make that intervention, for the reason which the House will readily appreciate. If he had wanted to make a speech he should have been in his place during the debate.
I come to some of the other points that have been raised by hon. Members. There was the specific question about the future of the sterling agreements and the related £2,000 million Basle facility of September, 1968. These are also matters which must be settled between Britain and the other countries which are parties to the arrangements. We are faced in the coming months with a series of related negotiations and discussions on these matters, which have, of course, received thorough and careful preparation. The House will not expect me to develop this matter further at this point.
I come to the points that were made by a number of hon. Members about the Werner Report on European Monetary Union. This development has been generally recognised as a movement which recognises the reality of our contemporary world. Today the economies of our countries, of our national States, are increasingly and inevitably interdependent, and changes in one country—whether in the level of employment, the rate of economic growth or the external account—have a direct impact on the situation in other countries.
I have no reason to dissent from the general observations that were made by the right hon. Member for Stechford or from the comments he made on the two practical points of narrower exchange rate margins between members of the Community, as contrasted with the use of wider margins in the general international system. There is no necessary incompatibility in that argument. I suggest that hon. Members read the European Review, winter edition, 1970–71, where the right hon. Gentleman's views are fully set out. Careful study will be repaid.
As regards the Werner Report, no rigid position has been adopted, as the

hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) pointed out. If we become members of the Community, we can influence the decisions. As for the first stage, no problem whatever arises. The second stage will not arise until after the negotiations are concluded. The third stage is pretty far in the future. I think that the anxieties of the right hon. Member for Stepney and other hon. Members are ill founded, and much of the talk of parities, as his right hon. Friend said, is thoroughly theoretical. Moreover, as his right hon. Friend pointed out, at a time when the right hon. Gentleman was in the Government, things were happening in Europe which showed that the existence of the common agricultural policy did not prevent quite considerable changes in the monetary field.

Mr. Shore: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is underplaying this point. I can well understand his motives for underplaying the significance of the Werner Report. It is not enough to talk about the first phase, which, I understand, is a two-year phase, in that way. What matters is that the total strategy for the decade is rather like the earlier transitional stage of the Treaty of Rome itself. We saw what happened in the period 1958–70, and we shall have the period 1970–80 with a full currency and non-convertibility.

Mr. Rippon: It is not like that. At a later stage, it would require amendments to the Treaty of Rome itself. What the Werner Report suggested was a progressive co-ordination of policies and the emergence of regional policies at the Community level of the sort to which the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) referred earlier. That would gradually diminish the need for changes in exchange rates within the Community, but such changes will be ruled out only at the final stage of monetary union. Certainly, the right hon. Gentlemen the Members for Cheetham and for Stechford did not fear the changes which might take place in many years to come, and nor do Her Majesty's Government.
Looking to the future, we may agree with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, was


reported in The Times as saying on 26th September, 1967:
Such policies would eventually allow the creation of a common European currency in which all our currencies, including sterling, would be subsumed.
All the speeches which successive Chancellors of the Exchequer and people in Europe have been making on this subject have been based on moving towards that final objective by realistic stages.
I turn briefly to one or two of the specific questions arising out of the negotiations. Most anxieties, perhaps, have been expressed about our contribution to the Community budget, and many doubts have been raised on that score by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell). The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), referred to the figure in the White Paper for February 1970 of £670 million a year as the eventual cost. But, as he knows, the White Paper pointed out that that was the theoretical upper limit. Moreover, it was a gross figure, not net. The figures I used in the House on 16th December expressed the net contribution.
I think that the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East is right when he says that we cannot go into great detail on these figures. Everything depends on the outcome of the negotiations. There will certainly come a point when the Government will have to come back and report to the House, as a result of the discussions about the key, about the size and shape of the budget and other factors, exactly what is involved.
All I say is that, as regards the Community budget, there are two objectives which we must achieve in the negotiations. First, we must ensure that there is adequate time for the dynamic effects to develop before the undeniable impact effects build up. In other words, we must ensure that we secure satisfactory arrangements for the transitional period in which the timing of our gradual integration into the Community will offer the prospect of a balance of mutual advantages to us and the Six.
Second, on the question of our contributions to the budget, we must continue to insist that the arrangements we make for the transitional period do not place intolerable burdens on our

economy and that we should be given adequate time in which to achieve the dynamic effects of membership before we become fully liable to the Six's existing financial system. I think that those are the sort of safeguards many hon. Members are looking for when they express anxieties about our contribution to the budget.
Many right hon. and hon. Members have expressed doubts about the dynamic effects and asked how we can quantify them. Of course, these things cannot be quantified with any degree of precision, but those of us who voted for the statement of 2nd May, 1967 accepted the arguments set out in that document as the reason why the then Government decided to make the application. We can also assess the cost of staying out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton suggested. I believe that Europe can secure its economic stability and progress only if we can command a market the size of the United States and supply funds for research and development on the scale necessary to produce marketable technology. What has been happening in the Community is that Western Europe has been the world's main importer of discoveries and the main exporter of brains. If it goes on like that there will be a cumulative underdevelopment of Western Europe from which we will suffer.
Equally, it is agreed that we in Britain cannot frequently make full use of our own research and development. What has been the result? A divided Western Europe has failed to provide an adequate aviation or space programme of its own. That is a tragic waste of resources which it should be one of our main purposes to end.
I turn briefly to the questions raised about the Commonwealth. Inevitably the main issues in the negotiations have been New Zealand dairy products and sugar from the developing countries. That has not meant that we have not been aware that there are special problems in relation to particular commodities and particular countries. As I have indicated in the various statements I have made to the House, we are negotiating with the concern of each particular member of the Commonwealth in mind. I consult them, and we shall make the best progress we can.
Many right hon. and hon. Members do not understand how the patterns of trade are changing. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe spoke of developing countries that need trade. Of course, that is true. But he should look at what Lee Kwan Yu, Prime Minister of Singapore, said last week. He said:
We were unfortunate that Britain was not a signatory of the Treaty of Rome on 25th March, 1957. Had she been, many of us might have been able to enjoy the benefits of a wider market for our produce and simple manufactures.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East that it is a pity that we did not go in at the beginning. I and many people advocated that we should. It is still not too late for us to seize these opportunities.
We must go ahead bearing in mind, as the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) said, that much of the opposition to the Community is negative, dwelling on objections rather than alternatives. We hear very little about alternatives. My hon. and learned Friend the

Member for Buckinghamshire, South says that we need no alternatives, but he is wrong. The negotiations may fail. We should survive, and the Six would survive. It would be in every way a second best for all of us if the negotiations failed. There would be bitterness and trouble for us all, far greater than the transient problem and challenges which success would bring. We should all be losers.
But I do not believe that the negotiations will fail, because it is not in the interests of any one of us that they should. I believe that a resurgent Europe, centred on the enlarged Community, is Britain's rightful place and the world's greatest hope today.
It is in that spirit that we shall continue to pursue the negotiations with the same humour, tenacity and realism as have always characterised the representatives of the Community, if I may borrow a phrase that President Pompidou used at his Press conference this afternoon.

Question, That this House do now adjourn, put and negatived.

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on the Motion relating to Industrial Training may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour during a period of one and a half hours after Ten o'clock, though opposed.—[Mr. Rossi.]

Orders of the Day — GUARDIANSHIP OF MINORS BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee.

Clauses 1 to 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading) and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

Orders of the Day — STANDING ORDER No. 18 (BUSINESS OF SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply) be amended as follows:—
Line 56, leave out 'Estimates' and insert 'Expenditure'.—[Mr. Rossi.]

STANDING ORDER No. 80 (ESTIMATES COMMITTEE)

Ordered,
That Standing Order No. 80 (Estimates Committee) be repealed, and that a new Standing Order be made, as follows:—

STANDING ORDER NO. 80 (EXPENDITURE COMMITTEE)

There shall be a select committee, to be called the Expenditure Committee, to consider any papers on public expenditure presented to this House and such of the estimates as may seem fit to the committee and in particular to consider how, if at all, the policies implied in the figures of expenditure and in the estimates may be carried out more economically, and to examine the form of the papers and of the estimates presented to this House; to consist of forty-nine Members, who shall be

nominated at the commencement of every session, and of whom nine shall be a quorum:

The committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time:

The committee shall have power to appoint persons with technical knowledge either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee's order of reference:

The committee shall have power to appoint sub-committees and to refer to such sub-committees any of the matters referred to the committee; three shall be the quorum of every such sub-committee:

Every such sub-committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to adjourn from place to place:

The committee shall have power to report from time to time the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committees:

The committee and any sub-committee appointed by the committee shall have power to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order.—[Mr. Rossi.]

ROAD TRANSPORT (INDUSTRIAL TRAINING LEVY)

10.2 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Fox: I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order, 1970.
I realise, in rising to make my maiden speech, that I am being rather unorthodox, and I hasten to add that I think it would be wrong of me to expect the indulgence of the House when some of the things I may say could be taken as being controversial. But then I am encouraged by the thought that my predecessor was Mr. Geoffrey Hirst, who was never orthodox. He was a good House of Commons man and a good constituency Member. If I do as well as he did, I shall be satisfied.
I will say little about my constituency, because I hope to be here for many years to enlarge upon that subject. I will only say that it is not the most beautiful in the United Kingdom but that the people who reside in Bingley, Baildon and Shipley are the finest. There is a unique inheritance for me in following Geoffrey Hirst because not only do I have a certain laxity towards the Opposition Front Bench but extend it to my own as


well. Perhaps I am making a good start by opening this debate.
I want the House to take note of this Order because I hope that when it is presented to us again for next year certain changes will have been made. Before I came to this House, I was involved in transport. I have had experience of the Road Transport Industry Training Board. Since I arrived here, I have had many letters from constituents, and from the letters of support from both sides of the House I can appreciate that this is a problem to all of us.
It is a good thing to make clear from the beginning that one is not arguing whether there should be training or not. It is a matter of getting the best training. I believe that the Industrial Training Act, 1964, at that time was right. But we established four training boards then and now we have 28. I never envisaged that the bandwaggon would roll with such speed. How it does roll on! I wonder how many people realise the implications. Let us think about them.
I am not arguing about training—it is right that we should have an adequate supply of well trained men and women, it is right that training should be improved wherever it can, and it is right that the costs should be shared as equally as possible. But the Road Transport Industry Training Board is concerned with three groups of people.
The first group is those who receive training. They must feel that the training is useful, practical and will be of advantage to them. They must feel that it will enable them to do their jobs better and at the same time enhance their future prospects. The second group consists of the men or the firms who have to pay for the training, and it is right that they should feel that it is advantageous to them and their firms. The third group is the people who do the training, and this is where we really come to the great weakness. They must have the confidence of the first two groups I have mentioned and it must be felt that they are serving the best interests of the industry they are supposed to lead or to serve.
On these counts, I am sorry to have to say that the Road Transport Industry Training Board has failed. I want to list one or two failures. The board will argue,

"But we have trained 35 per cent. of the people who come within the scope of the board". That is more than 300,000 people. But what have they been trained to do? Is it training for training's sake? This, I am afraid, is the situation we find ourselves in. There is too much of, "How much can we claim back in grant and let us fit training to it?" instead of, "How necessary is the training?" I want to quote my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Social Services who said that the strategy of the 1964 Act was right but he added:
But in parts the idea has run riot. We never dreamt of courses for petrol pump attendants.
Bureaucracies have grown up. Grant-hunting is a new management skill. We shall look to the boards to do only what is really necessary.
Is the tail wagging the dog? Let us remember that this is only supposed to be a means to an end and not an end in itself.
My criticism of the board is that, firstly, it has no control of costs. The red flag was flying in 1968, when it was £2½ million in the red. Did that deter the board? What happened in the following year? It was £3½ million in the red. The liabilities of the board today are £6 million in excess of its assets. How can the board say to any businessman in any small firm, "Take guidance from us and we will put you on your feet?" We know where any firm will end up if it takes guidance from an organisation like that.
Secondly, there is concern about the type of training being offered, the ever-increasing recommendations from the board, the different courses it offers. It is all totally unrealistic. There is an obsession with off-the-job training. I agree that with certain jobs it is necessary to take people from their normal place of work, but is it necessary for someone to be sent 200 miles away to learn how to unload a vehicle and how to stack things so that the top box does not fall off?
The industry did not do so badly in the old days—I speak from experience—[Laughter.] It is all very well for the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) to laugh, but the industry had to find people to do this work, and if a businessman could not find a driver to drive his truck, his business ground to a


halt. To have a licence to drive a public service vehicle for 40 years, one has to conform to the law and take a stringent test. I know, because I took it and failed. I did not think that that system was all that bad.
I turn to the subject of staffing. In 1968 we were told that there would be no increase in the administrative staff, but by two years later there was a 50 per cent. increase. So the story has gone on—extravagant exercises in public relations and in publications. For instance, there are forecourt attendants—in Yorkshire we call them petrol pump staff. For their training there is a 12-page training booklet, a 41-page instructors' guide, eight easy-to-learn booklets of ten pages each and eight plastic memory aid cards. After all this I should expect a clean windscreen. With all this, the paper work grows.
It is not just the levy which is the evil of all this. The evil concerns the hidden hours taken up with filling in forms. I have a letter from a firm not far from where I live and which I have known for years. It employs 35 staff and owns 18 vehicles and nine coaches. It has operated 20 training programmes with five for the office staff. It has written to me to say that it intends to discontinue the programme and passing the cost of the R.T.I.T.B. to its customers, having paid £1,087 in levy for this year. It is right to do so, because it found that it was uneconomic to pay a training officer out of its own pocket. What a nonsense all this is!
This leads me to two main criticisms. The first is the inability of small firms to benefit from this training board. They are defeated by the red tape. It should not be thought that this is just a small matter, for 52,000 firms are involved employing 900,000 employees. Firms employing ten workers or fewer represent 78 per cent. of the firms in the industry, which means that 30,000 firms have 10 employees or fewer. To remove all these firms from the scope of the levy all we have to provide is that firms paying emoluments of less than £5,000 a year, approximately £100 a week as a wages bill, will be removed from paying the levy, and overnight 30,000 firms will find that they have none of this red tape to cope with. And what will this cost the board? It will cost £420,000 out of a

total levy of £17½ million. Of that £420,000, £200,000 goes on administration, staff and facilities. For heaven's sake, why has this not been done years ago?
The biggest complaint of all—the postbag of all hon. Members present will confirm this—is with the levy grant system. The concern can be understood when one remembers that this board levies the third highest levy of all the 28 boards. Half of those boards, approximately 14, have to collect only 50 per cent. of the R.T.I.T.B. levy, so we cannot claim that they are efficient. We are not talking about chickenfeed here. In the coming year, the board expects to raise £20 million. It is no wonder that people and firms are bitter about this.
Let me move on to the system of collecting grant within this board. The biggest complaint is that the diverse industries are not satisfied with the present system, that they are all lumped together, and it is assumed that their training needs are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. The road haulage industry is incensed because it only gets back half in grant of what it pays in levy. The Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association is on the wrong side. The motor agents do quite well, but whether they are in debit or in credit, none of them wants anything to do with the board in its present form. They are unanimous in their condemnation, and they want to have a complete change.
There are so many examples of injustice. I have here a letter from a Hampshire firm of motor cycle agents. They are most concerned that they have been asked several times for payment of levies. They only sell motor cycles—
Should any of our staff attend these courses, they would no doubt return as trained motor car storemen or mechanics. This would in turn encourage them to leave the motor cycle industry, at our expense. The effect of this would be similar to a member of the Conservative Party being compelled to pay a levy to finance the funds of the Labour Party … under threat that refusal would mean prosecution. We have written to the board informing them that we would have no objection to subsidising a training course, provided it was to the motor cycle industry's advantage as a whole, but until this comes about, we have no intention of meeting any of the payment demands.
They are right to say this. We must get down to making the training fit the industries.
I do not argue from the point of view that these boards should be dispensed with overnight. There is widespread dissatisfaction, which we all accept, but in the case of this board, what we have to do is to decentralise, and there are three obvious industries to centre the new organisation upon. These are the three which form advisory committees under the existing board, the road haulage industry, the retail motor industry and the passenger road transport industry. They would automatically be responsible for raising their own levy and for deciding how grants are given. There is nothing new in this. The Wool, Flax and Jute Textile Board already does this, and it works. It has 18 different sections and it levies what it needs to do the necessary training. It is important that these boards should be run by people within the industry and that we get the training that is necessary. This interim measure—it is only an interim measure—I hope will get us back to the idea of thinking that training should go back to the practical people who are involved in these industries.
At the end of the day, with certain safeguards, the Government should be able to opt out. What is wrong about that? We all want to be cost-effective. If the industry is being milked because it is paying excessive levies, it has that bit less in its coffers. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House can see that.
There are many ideas to develop. I believe that, if a firm is doing training which is acceptable and successful, it should be able to opt out of paying levy. There are some big firms who have done very nicely out of training, and it is time that we called a halt to it. Surely it was never the intention of the previous Conservative Government that a profit should be made out of training. I am sure that other hon. Members can confirm that large firms in many other industries have gone hell-bent to make a profit out of training. That is regrettable, because it was never our intention. If training is worth while, it is degrading to look at it in this light.
In the Gracious Speech, we were promised a review of training boards. I appreciate that it is not yet ready, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will say a little about the future

hopes and that we shall not see a continuation of the system which operates now.
There are too many sacred cows in this country. I do not want to see training boards getting into that category. We have to look for a new concept of training which, after all, is a partnership. No industry would become involved in training unless it looked at all the implications. That means getting the trade unions involved, and getting those others involved who know what the job is about. I hope that we can look forward to my hon. Friend relieving us of many of these anxieties. If we are presented with a similar Statutory Instrument next year, many of us will not be as happy as we have been tonight.

10.22 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Backfield: It is with some pleasure that I follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox). I do not know whether he recalls the occasion, but the last time that we spoke together was at a symposium at the new University of Bradford. We found ourselves on opposite sides of the political fence. I find this evening that I disagree with a great deal of what he has said, but since, once upon a time, maiden speeches were non-controversial, I will not disagree directly with what he said. Having heard him, I feel sure that he will make some very worth-while contributions to our debates. Certainly he has made a very good start in some of his extremely relevant comments towards the end of his contribution this evening.
The hon. Gentleman has been widely reported in the technical Press as wanting to wind up the Road Transport Industry Training Board altogether. I presume from what he has said that he has been misreported to some extent.
I think that it behoves the Government to make clear their attitude to this industry training board. It is not clear whether they would like to see it wound up completely, having after all introduced the Act setting it up, or whether they would like to see its structure modified. We need a more definite statement of policy, and I hope that we shall hear from the Minister of State some clear indications of the Government's proposals. If they intend merely to propose some slight modifications, I would be inclined


to support their proposals. If on the other hand they are making out a case for abolition, they would attract my complete condemnation. I give a fair number of lectures on transport, some of which I hope would qualify for the grants which we are discussing. Attendance at these lectures by the road transport section of the industry is always very sparse. The disparity between those attending from the road transport section and from the railways, the Air Corporations and the Port of London Authority is very wide.
As a one-time lorry driver and member of the Transport and General Worker's Union, one thing that has struck me about the road haulage and garage side of the industry is the complete lack of career structure. On the railway side of the industry and the public service vehicle side there are comprehensive training programmes and facilities for training are offered by the National Bus Company and by various municipal corporation bus fleets. Some independent bus operators offer training. On the other hand, on the road haulage side, apart from cadetship schemes which used to be offered by British Road Services, now part of the National Freight Corporation, there is almost a complete lack of training schemes. If hon. Gentlemen opposite read The Times, they will see from this morning's issue that since the board was set up 95 graduates have been attracted into road transport.
The computer routing of vehicles and physical distribution management is a science. The hon. Member for Shipley will recognise this, because the new University of Bradford is rapidly becoming a centre for physical distribution management. To enable people to acquire these scientific and computer-based techniques there is a need for more advanced training. I was pleased to see the increased amount of management training which the board is encouraging, and the number of graduates coming into the industry.
The attitude of the road haulage industry towards training is demonstrated by the way in which it has put under the carpet the proposals of the last Government for a transport manager's licence. Even the Secretary of State for the Environment in Committee on the

Transport Bill supported quality licensing, which involves better training facilities for management. The attitude of the road haulage industry has been deplorably demonstrated by the way it has almost successfully talked out of existence proposals for a transport manager's licence. This attitude towards the education and training which is obviously needed for sophisticated management techniques demonstrates the need for the board. I am pleased to say that the Guild of Transport Managers has now put forward proposals for a "closed shop" transport manager's licence. I do not know how the "closed shop" will be affected by the Industrial Relations Bill, but belated proposals are coming forward for a more restricted form of transport manager's licence.
Road haulage is a non-career based industry which is just beginning to realise that it needs more sophisticated management techniques in its training. I believe that this board has been a great impetus in that direction.
I visited the Road Transport Industry Training Board—I went on my own invitation—because I was interested to see how the money, to which the hon. Member for Shipley referred, was being spent. I was particularly impressed by the modern, up-to-date, attitude towards the communications media which the board is showing. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite realise that this is one of the few training boards which makes its own films, and those plastic cards. It has cassettes, tape recorders, and all the modern communications media for getting down to the grass roots of the industry. Hon. Members may feel that this is a rather expensive way of providing training, but anybody with experience in public relations or the communications media will realise that many people bound up in transport do not have the time to sit down night after night poring over books. Consequently, a far more adequate, thorough, and efficient way of getting through to them is to place the accent on the modern communications media, which I am glad to say that the board is using. I believe that this board has pioneered many of the modern communications techniques to get through to people who otherwise would not have the time to pore over books and study every night.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have made jokes about petrol pump attendants being trained. I speak as a one who served as a holiday time forecourt operator on the M.5 service area at Frensham, Worcestershire. I can only repeat what I have heard about the number of mistakes made by forecourt operators. They range from putting diesel fuel into petrol tanks, and petrol into diesel-engined vehicles, to putting petrol into the radiator of a Renault motor car. It is surprising what happens when that is done. I did not do that. But I used to clean the windscreens. I was taught to clean the windscreens, because the company employing me believed in training its forecourt operators. Therefore, I served petrol as a trained forecourt operator. I was not trained by the board, of course.
I have heard about many simple mistakes made by forecourt operators—even trained forecourt operators. I am not running them down. On the whole, they give me very good service—especially when they see the House of Commons badge on the windscreen.
As I said, on the whole, petrol pump attendants give good service, but I have heard of deaths even through petrol pump attendants playing around with compressed air hoses. I hope that hon. Gentlemen will not laugh at that. Elementary mistakes can be made with dipsticks, batteries, putting petrol in the wrong hole, and so on. These things happen, and they stem from a complete and utter lack of training.
It would certainly be welcome to me if, every time I want on to a garage forecourt, I could find a petrol pump attendant—call him what one will—who knew where the dipstick was, knew how much the space marked on the dipstick was supposed to represent, and knew the quality and quantity of oil and petrol which my car needed. I often have to tell the attendant those things—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—I am glad that hon. Gentlemen have cars about which they know the operating performances, tyre pressures, and things like that. But there are a few rather unscientific people in this country who may not know all these details. With the conflicting claims which are made by the oil and petrol manufacturers, I should be more than grateful for a trained forecourt

attendant to sort out some of the difficulties. They have been saying that they do not see the need for training in many things. Loading a lorry is an acquired skill.

Mr. Raymond Gower: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that some of the most useful people in this industry are those who have been apprenticed in the old-fashioned way to some of the larger firms?

Mr. Huckfield: I accept that, but the difficulty is to find garages which take on apprentices on the old scale. It is my evidence that the attitude of many sectors of the trade towards apprenticeships is getting worse and worse.
The hon. Gentleman talked about splitting some of the functions of this board. Surprisingly enough, I agree with him. I do not agree with the Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association and the Road Haulage Association to the extent that the hon. Gentleman does—unfortunately I did not get their memorandum in the post—but the fact is that this board, however much page 10 of its report may try to disguise it, is using the levy from road haulage and the passenger vehicle operators to subsidise the garage trade. I know that this is controversial in the transport industry, and that even the board uses arguments to show that this is not the case, but there is a great deal of feeling in the road haulage industry and the public service vehicle industry that their levy is being used to subsidise the garage trade.
It seems to me that it would be more sensible—and I again quote the good example of the Wool and Jute Industry Training Board—to split up the activities of this board. It is a comprehensive board, covering all sections of the road transport industry, and I think that if the garage side of the board was looking after its training, the public service vehicle side was looking after its side, and the road haulage side looking after its side, we would have a far more sensible administrative structure.
I am sure that hon. Gentlemen opposite will have agreed with me in the past when I have said that much of the 1968 Transport Act and much of the 1964 Industrial Training Act was necessary because industries like these were not doing any training, and the whole object of the


board has been to encourage the spread of training schemes, particularly off the job and elswhere. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, because in the renewed emphasis which the board has given to training in the whole of the industry, and in the consciousness of the need for training which the board is forcing on the industry, it is doing a good job.

Mr. Ernle Money: Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the criticism, which many hon. Members have heard from their constituents, that those who are paying most into the board in terms of levy are getting the least out of it in terms of value?

Mr. Huckfield: What the hon. Gentleman fails to realise is what many other critics have failed to recognise. The scheme under which the boards operate was set up by the Conservative Party, and it is the industries themselves which control the activities of these boards. I do not know how many letters the hon. Gentleman has written to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, but in reply to complaints that I have made in the past about other training boards—not about this one—I have always received a reply saying that the policy of the board is not a matter for the Secretary of State but for the board itself which comprises representatives from the industry, and if the industry does not like the membership of the board it is up to the industry to do something about it.
Half the trouble is that here is an industry which on the road haulage side, on the public service vehicle side, and on the garage side, has never really decided who ought to represent it. I can only quote the present schism between various associations representing municipal corporation bus fleets, the independent operators and the territorial operators. The bus side is split in its representation. The road haulage side is split between the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association. Even the garage side tends to be split between the Motor Agents' Association and one or two other groups.
It seems to me that if many of the smaller people are not getting adequate representation in the management and decision-taking of these boards, a lot of the fault for this lies in the industries

themselves because they have not decided which will be the associations, which will be the committees, that will represent them.
I end as I began, by saying that I believe in this board. I believe in the fine example of pioneering work done by it. I should not like to see it wound up. I agree that there should be modifications, perhaps along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for Shipley—and for the speech that he made I am grateful. I hope that in his winding-up speech the Minister will state clearly that his party's aim is not to wind up these boards but to make certain modifications. I hope that he will keep in the forefront of his mind not the fact that road hauliers do not attend my lectures but that in future we shall need to see a much more constructive attitude to training on the part of the road transport industry. I hope that we shall get a road transport industry that believes in training, and that we shall have a more managerial-conscious, technically-conscious, more educated and more career structure based road transport industry. From that we shall benefit, and from that the whole economy will benefit.

10.41 p.m.

Sir David Renton: I am sure that the House would wish me to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) on a brilliant and well-chosen maiden speech. My hon. Friend exhibited that common sense and good humour that we have come to expect from Yorkshire Members. If he carries on in the future as he has started this evening we shall be proud of his performances on this side of the House.
The Government did not create the situation that we are discussing; they inherited it. They found that negotiations had proceeded pretty far, no doubt under some pressure, before this Order was laid before the House. Our anxiety on this side of the House has been exhibited by the presence of so many of my hon. Friends, who when my hon Friend was speaking outnumbered hon. Members opposite by no less than 10 to 1.
The Government must do something about this situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) referred to this Order as though it applied only to those who work in garages and


road haulage and bus companies, but it also applies to agricultural engineers. That is where my constituency interest lies. Agriculture has been going through a very difficult time recently, and is still doing so. The agricultural engineers play a most important part in the industry.
I have corresponded with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment about this scheme ever since last July, when the Order was laid. One of the answers that he gave me was that he wished that employers who have complaints to make against the scheme would complain to their colleagues on the training board. I have a list of the names of the members of the training board. I have been through it with one of my constituents, who has pointed out to me that not one agricultural engineer is on that board. The agricultural engineering side of the industry is not represented on it.
One very interesting point is made in the Order. At the top of page 3 it says, somewhat ironically,
The levy shall be assessed by the Board in respect of each employer, not being a charity.
In these days employers not only have to pay the training board levy; they have to pay S.E.T., National Insurance contributions, graduated pensions contributions, and redundancy payments. Perhaps that combination of compulsory payments may be at least a contributory factor to the high unemployment that we have today. It means that, before insisting that this fairly large training levy shall be paid by employers in addition to all their other contributions, we have to make sure at least that value for money is being obtained.
These agricultural engineers in my constituency have said that they simply cannot get value for money. There is one in particular, not a very large firm, which does very important work servicing farmers' machinery. It pays the board a levy of approximately £1,000 a year. It has a very good fitter, who has done his craftsman's training, what I believe is sometimes described as "on the job" training, and who could benefit from "off the job training." This man is married. About the only place that he can get the off the job training he requires is a technical college in the West Country,

but that means his getting a residential block release course for ten weeks in the spring and ten weeks in the late autumn.
He earns about £20 a week, and, as a married man, one would not expect him to live comfortably on much less, bearing in mind his skill. But if his employers were to send him for training, they would have to pay his full wages for 20 weeks, and after taking into account the grant which they get from the training board, which would only partially cover his wages, subsistence costs and travelling expenses, the company would be out of pocket by about £300—in addition to the £1,000 levy. The House will appreciate that in the present state of farming and the still depressed state of industry, that firm cannot contemplate additional liabilities of that nature.
I would end by quoting from a letter sent to me by the managing director of this firm of agricultural engineers, which is only one out of the many in my constituency who have complained to me about this:
There is no need to emphasise that a Conservative Government was elected, among other things, to rid industry of the considerable and largely unnecessary burden placed on its shoulders in various ways by previous legislation and increased by the previous Socialist Government. I must look to you as my Member to do everything possible to reduce the unnecessary burden.
He points out that that burden is crushing the industrial life of this country and that that is the main reason for this country's small rate of economic growth.
Even if this is only a contributory factor in our economic difficulties, I say that my right hon. Friends should be seriously considering whether we can go on with this expensive scheme, and whether we should not say that it is not giving good enough value for money to industry, that whatever advantages it can give can probably be provided much better in most cases by employers themselves, by extending the principle of on the job training.

10.49 p.m.

Mr. David Clark: I rise with mixed feelings, because I am a great proponent of the Industrial Training Act, which the previous Conservative Government did the nation a great service by introducing in 1963–64. I am also rather sad that it has become the vogue


these days for the industrial training boards to become the whipping boys of the nation. It seems that anything the boards do is wrong. Having said that, however, I feel that in this case there is certain justification in raising the matter in the House.
If a training board has caused so much dissatisfaction among its members, it must have gone astray somewhere. Therefore, I applaud some of the things that the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) said in his maiden speech. That a training board has lost confidence, however, is no reason for abolishing the industrial training scheme, and I hope that when he replies to the debate the Minister will make this clear. The board for the road transport industry has done a great deal of good work. It is probably too early to judge completely how great its value is.
I find myself in a rather amusing situation, because often when I talk to business men and to hon. Members opposite, they tell me that the trouble today is that the Government have interfered too much in business. On the other hand, it is frequently those same people, with a few honourable exceptions, who come running to the Government whenever they are in trouble.
When the industrial training boards were set up, a compromise was entered into and it was agreed that the Government would set up the boards to tackle the problem nationally but that it would be left to industry to decide who would be represented on the boards, so that the training which was implemented would, in theory, have the confidence of the industry, the employers and the trade unions. Here we have a rather sad situation in which, perhaps, the leaders of the industry seem to be out of touch to a certain extent with some of the people in it.
To take the point a stage further, questions of apprenticeship and training have been raised by the hon. Member for Shipley. I am sure that the vast majority of hon. Members opposite would agree that more training is needed. As a nation, we have few natural resources and we depend on the skill, technical ability and managerial ability of our workers.
The Act was introduced because it was found that a few firms were doing all the

training. They were spending all the money but others, large and small, were poaching those they had trained. Therefore, the Act was introduced to spread the cost of industrial training throughout the nation. Thus, to argue in terms of apprenticeships is to use a false argument because, in one way, apprenticeship is exactly what the board is trying to provide.
It is essential to keep the board going in the road transport industry because so much of our livelihood depends upon it. We all know of the small garages and the terrible criticism to which garages are subjected. I certainly have my criticism. Garages, however, are changing. When I take my car to the garage to be serviced nowadays, there are probably 130 or 140 cars being serviced on the same day. It is a highly sophisticated operation. I gather that a computer is used to check some of the engines. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, dear."] Hon. Members may not appreciate this but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) has said, it is not a simple job to service the engine of a modern car. When I get my car back, I get a computer statement telling me what was wrong and what has been done.
This is the future. It is no use thinking in terms of small garages only, because in the large centres of population we will find these large garages, which need highly trained people. The great hiatus in British industry is at management level, in manufacturing, distributive industry and the service industries. I look to the board, in a reformed state, to push ahead with its training and modernisation schemes and especially with its aim to increase its management training facilities. I appeal to the Minister not to abolish, but to reform, this body.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Paul B. Rose: I wish, at the outset, to congratulate the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) on his maiden speech. He told us how he had failed a heavy vehicle test. Tonight he passed with honours his first test in this House. He made an interesting and constructive speech and, although my hon. Friends may not have agreed with all he said, he supplied us with plenty of food for thought. We


look forward to hearing his blunt Yorkshire humour on many occasions, and I say that as a Lancastrian, though we both come from Rugby League country.
It is curious that tonight the Government are faced with a Prayer tabled by their back benchers, though this is not without precedent. We have been told frequently about the Government's pride in paternity in regard to the proposals which were contained in the White Paper, Cmnd. 1892. They were elected to office on 18th June, only seven days after the present Prime Minister said at a meeting at Ayr:
Something like 100,000 men and women will need to be trained every year by industry, government and through the educational system.
He pledged the Government to
an unprecedented programme of training as a central feature of Conservative economic policy".
Admittedly he did not claim to do that at a stroke, but the Labour Government had had a remarkably good record in regard to training centres. Indeed, they had achieved the largest expansion in industrial training in our history, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite—I say this in good faith—will continue our policy—[Interruption.]—and will keep the promise which their Leader made at Ayr, despite the dissenting noises that some hon. Gentlemen opposite have been making.
As for the industries with which we are concerned tonight, until July, 1969, there had been an increase of 35,715 in the number of employees undergoing training, though there were no new administrative staff. On the contrary. Because of computerisation, their numbers had reduced from 58 to four. Although I appreciate that the many demands on small businesses create problems in this connection, I am encouraged by the statement in the Annual Report:
There is convincing evidence that the haulage sector sees driver training as one of its major responsibilities.
While I am aware of the views of certain hon. Members who would like to split up the industry, the evidence on page 10 of the Report and the table on page 11 indicate that the imbalance which has undoubtedly existed is being corrected and that in some respects it operates in favour

of those sectors of the industry which are complaining, and that is in regard to the direct training facilities which are being offered by the board.
Be that as it may, there is a case to be considered and when the Labour Party were in office there was being carried out at the D.E.P. a review into the working of the Industrial Training Act because we were aware that in some industries the boards' functions needed to be improved.
There can be few sectors of industry where the need for training is more abundantly clear than in road transport. All the evidence points to this, including the N.E.D.C. Report, the Prices and Incomes Board's Report, the report in Which?, the Daily Mail survey, the Report of the independent consultants appointed by the Motor Agents' Association and the statement made by the Director-General of the Automobile Association.
I have here quite a body of evidence—I cannot deploy all of it because of the time—with regard to what all of us have experienced, including myself during the past week, concerning the way in which our cars are serviced. According to the Which? reports,
No garage gave any car a complete service as listed by the manufacturer. Three-quarters missed out important points. Safety was largely disregarded. We had loosened the mountings of one of the safety belts and this was never tightened. Only one in eight garages noticed a very worn tyre"—
and I believe there are regulations about that sort of thing.
Not one of these noticed a tyre which had been temporarily plugged, and was unsafe for permanent use. Very few garages reported on additional faults, however serious.
These reports go into the details, and we are all aware of this sort of complaint.
We learn from the Daily Mail that
Every time a motorist takes his car to a garage for service or repairs, the chances are that he will be cheated. He can end up paying for time not worked …".
That well-known "Socialist" newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, found that 50 out 51 cars found to have dangerous brakes were checked and the one which came out best was the car which the owner had serviced.
It is in the interests of the industry itself that training should be improved.


Otherwise, increasingly drivers will service their own vehicles because it will be the only way in which they can be sure of good service. The industry must be concerned about this trend of "do it yourself" and also about the growing manpower which will be demanded by what is a continually expanding industry. We need a force that is properly trained, and I resent the undertones which seemed to indicate that some hon. Members think that because a petrol pump attendant's job appears to be simple, and because an hon. Member may happen to be a member of a learned profession or in business, the person doing a manual job does not need to be properly trained. I am not referring in particular to the hon. Gentleman who opened the debate, but there is certainly the assumption that people doing a job of work of this kind can just walk into the job and do it. This was exposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield).

Mr. Robert Taylor: When the matter of petrol pump attendants was put by a reporter to the Director-General of the Road Transport Industrial Training Board and he was questioned about the purpose of these courses, he replied
… the proprietor of a garage can be concerned in selling a whole range of products. We have all noticed that the garage forecourt is more and more a place where the customer can buy sweets, mineral waters and all manner of things.
That appears to be what the Director-General believes is the purpose of the course, and is contrary to what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

Mr. Rose: Anyone who has had the experience, as I have, as a non-mechanic, of having trouble with his car, has been grateful to find a petrol pump attendant who has been trained to enable him to be of great service to the customer. There is far more to being a pump attendant than merely putting the nozzle into the tank of a car. The hon. Gentleman is making a very trivial point.
What is significant is that the Report of the N.E.D.O. said:
… the Road Transport Industry Training Board is assisting the improvement of training methods and standards.
The Report goes on to expand upon this, as hon. Members will see if they care to look at page 18, where it is stated:

… motoring manufacturing companies have a role to play in continuing and extending their support to their dealer's workshop and other operations, and the Road Transport Industry Training Board by further improvement of training methods and standards.
We are calling for the improvement, and not the scrapping of these boards. An enormous responsibility rests upon the people in this industry, especially drivers of heavy vehicles. It is often this field which attracts people who may not have skills in other fields and who badly need training. It was recently reported that the industry was short of 25,000 heavy goods vehicle drivers. The fact that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Shipley who spoke so well, failed his test shows that training is necessary for this purpose. Moreover, at a time when we have 690,000 unemployed, if there be that shortage, perhaps some industrial training might help to close the gap. Clearly, people with a proper level of skill will not be produced without organised training.
Any organisation which is set up to help the situation—no one suggests for a moment that this one is perfect—is doomed to run into philistine criticism. There are about 60,000 employers within the scope of the Road Transport Industry Training Board, employing between them about 1 million workpeople, and they have a long tradition of letting training look after itself. Many of them do not like to see any change, and they are scarcely prepared for happy co-operation with an organisation which will require of them a certain level of performance, a level which some have not yet achieved, though others, I am glad to say, are well on the way to achieving it.
The board has been criticised in a number of ways tonight, principally on the ground of lack of proper financial control and for having spent large sums of money which belong to the industry, with very little to show for it. In fact, the board has cost the industry little. The problem—this was highlighted by one or two comments from the Government benches is that too much of the money available has been paid back from the levy in the form of training grant. Also, the board has another problem to face in that it is in its early days and it has to make an early impact on a difficult industry to overcome its inertia in the matter of training. In a sense, it had to


overspend at first deliberately in order to get the industry started along proper lines with a proper training policy and programme. The total cost of its own administration as shown in the accounts for the year ending 31st March, 1970, was £372,000, which indicates that it was not particularly expensive.
The board has been criticised also for the amount of paper work, a common problem today in all industry. I understand that this affects the smaller employer in particular, and it is a problem worthy of attention. But, while there may be evidence for this complaint, if one is to have a well organised programme certain records must be kept. It may be the price we have to pay for good organisation and training.
Possibly, the most worrying aspect of the debate, and some of the undertones, noises and rumblings made by certain hon. Members opposite from a seated position, is the claim that, because they pay the piper, the employers should call the tune. I am glad to note that some hon. Gentlemen did not share that view. In my opinion, there can be no support here for the concept of majority control by those who run the industry. It must be a partnership, a partnership with trade unionists, with educationists, and even with those who, like by hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huck-field), to give lectures.
The employers must realise that the industry is not entirely theirs, that the 1 million people working in road transport are equally part of the industry and equally concerned in it, having their lives and careers bound up with it. They need the kind of structure for advancement in the industry to which my hon. Friend referred. Not least, the general public have a great interest in the efficiency of the industry, for our safety and our lives can often depend upon the training and skill of those who work in it.
It is intolerable that the co-operation which is so necessary risks being destroyed as the result of a selfish attitude on the part of a minority of hon. Members opposite and others outside who represent the kind of employer who wishes to turn the clock back and does not understand the new concept of employer-employee relationships.
We have a farsighted policy, and I hope that the Minister will continue with it, whatever deficiencies may have to be ironed out; and will recognise that tonight we have heard the first shot being fired by those who would like to destroy these training boards, even though the Motion was moved in terms of the need to improve the board mentioned. I therefore hope that the Minister will resist any suggestion that it should be scrapped, though we on this side accept the need for an examination of the manner in which it works.

11.11 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Paul Bryan): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) on his very fine maiden speech. Shipley, as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is an area that I know very we indeed. It was superbly represented in this House for 20 years. I believe that Geoffrey Hirst was one of the very best constituency Members I have ever met. I am confident that Shipley will continue to be represented well for another 20 years, and its present incumbent will certainly be a very great asset to the House.
I congratulate my hon. Friend, too, on introducing this debate. It is clearly a short debate, and held late at night, but I feel that we needed an opportunity to have at least some debate at an early stage, because people are very concerned about the subject. The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) has said that the benches on this side are filled with people who wish to turn the clock back, but the truth is that those Members are very concerned at what is going on, and want to see an improvement in the training system.
Although this debate is concerned with the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order, and therefore with the Road Transport Industry Training Board a number of the points that have been raised have had a much wider import, and this evening we have touched on almost all the well known worries of the other boards as well. We have heard about the quality of training, with which my hon. Friend was concerned, and one constantly comes across doubt about the extent to which the training boards are producing the type of training right across the range of firms with which they are


dealing, which is a very difficult matter when one has so many industries coming under one training board, and such a large number and variety of firms.
Tonight we have had reference to the financial control problems in other training boards, often arising because the boards have, shall I say, been trapped by the snare of the open-ended grant. The good side is that the boards have pressed for more training and finance for training, but from the financial angle it can only be a snare.
We have heard about the boards' relationship with individual firms and industry, and one is disappointed by the difficulty in communication there seems to be between firms and their boards. That is why many of them turn to us, their Members of Parliament, when, if the communications were working, those firms should be going to the boards which are concerned with their own industry.
We have heard about the effects of the changes in the boards' levy grant scheme. The other night I was talking to a group of employers, one of whom referred to the "lottery" of the whole affair, and quoted to me the amounts of money he paid in levy vis- à-vis the number of people he employed. One realises that changes which are made at headquarters and which may seem to be quite sensible—and probably they are, because they are to right a wrong—when they are reflected in the firm, can look quite mad. Although we are debating a very narrow subject, it is worth remembering that these are wide-scale worries which we, as Members, have met in the past.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: My hon. Friend has mentioned a lottery, but some groups coming under the R.T.I.T.B. feel that it is a lottery which they cannot possibly win, because they are paying a levy for training which that board is unable to provide for their group. One such group is the Agricultural Machinery and Tractor Dealers Association. Would my hon. Friend look at that point?

Mr. Bryan: I certainly shall. I have not got that covered in my speech, which has only 15 more minutes to run.
I think that the general situation certainly justified the Government's decision to undertake a review. My right hon.

Friend has announced this, and it is now in train. It will be widely accepted that that was a sensible decision.
In the review we are taking full account of the views and criticisms expressed both here tonight and elsewhere as evidence for our review. Tonight's debate will add to this material. We shall be covering these questions in our proposals, which we expect to issue before the parliamentary year is through.
We are pressing ahead with the review as fast as we can because clearly people are very anxious to know what will happen, both in the boards and the firms covered with them. Industrial training is too big and important a subject for decisions on it to be taken very quickly. We must think very carefully of the long-term first before we decide what is to be done in the medium-term, so I shall not promise that we shall have our solutions out in a few weeks' time, as soon as the review is completed. We shall keep our promise in the Queen's Speech, and before the Session is through we shall announce our policy on the subject.
I think that the greatest worry about the Road Transport Industry Training Board, as has been brought out clearly in tonight's debate, has been how the levy arrangements and the associated grant schemes should be regulated so that the three main sectors, road haulage, passenger transport and motor vehicle repair, can be treated equitably. Throughout its existence the board's levy has been at a single rate payable by all sectors. The out-turn of the board's first levy and grant scheme resulted in the motor vehicle sector receiving more in grants than it paid in levy; the road haulage sector receiving less in grants than it paid in levy; and the passenger transport sector breaking about even.
From the outset there has been pressure from the industry for different levy rates for each sector. The Board had not built up sufficient data to consider this fully until 1969, and when it did so it considered that the position would become balanced by 1973.
However, as there was inequality arising from differences in size of firms it introduced a sliding scale of levy under which smaller firms paid at a reduced rate. It also applied a limit to the total amount of grant an individual firm could receive.
When the board considered what proposals to make for the 1970 levy and the associated grant scheme it had to take account of a deterioration in its own financial position. It saw no prospect of reducing its levy income, and to introduce different rates of levy at that stage would have entailed an unacceptable increase in the levy rate for the motor vehicle repair section. It did, however, propose changes in its grant scheme, the principal one being the introduction of what is called a block grant, which was at the rate of 25 per cent of levy paid. This replaced the payment of grants at a daily rate for on-the-job training, and was paid to firms showing a satisfactory standard in their general training arrangements.
Other changes were made to bring grants for different sectors more closely into line with each other, and to curtail total expenditure. With these changes the Board considered that the return to the three sectors would be in better balance when the grants and training services were compared with the levy. They have now pretty well evened up, but I will not give the exact figures.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley suggested that it would be far better if we might have three mini-Boards, so that each sector of the industry had control over its own training needs and so on. This is not possible under the Act if, by it, one means that they would also be in charge of their own levy. Provision exists in the Act for committees to exercise some of the board's powers, but it cannot delegate to such committees its power to impose a levy in accordance with an Order made by the Secretary of State. The sub-boards suggested would therefore not be able to control finance from the centre as the law stands.
When we took office, the situation we inherited was that all three sectors were entirely dissatisfied with the Board's 1970 levy proposals and made representation to the Department. The main criticisms concerned the inequity of the proposed levy and grant schemes, the board's organisation, and the lack of adequate consultation with the industry by the board before taking its decision. So matters were such at this stage that the levy was necessary to continue the board's

operations. The levy and the grant proposals represented an improvement in that the ratio between the levy paid and the grants and training services received by the three sectors were likely to be more equal. There was the prospect also of continued improvement in the future by the development of the "block grant" idea. The grant scheme was therefore approved and the levy order was made. That is the story of the levy so far as we were concerned.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a precedent for separate administration for the three sectors set by the Wool and Jute Industry Training Board?

Mr. Bryan: I cannot answer that at once. It is one of the boards I have yet to study but I should be surprised if it could go against the law on the basis I have described. But I will look into it.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) raised a point about representation on the board and the rôle of its members. In the Act, one of the main points of the organisation set up was that the boards should be independent and autonomous, and just about the only control which the Government had over them was the authorisation or approval of the yearly levy. This seemed the right way because one felt, as I have said, that if the boards were composed of members of the industry one would get the close communication that one hoped for.
In fact, this appears to be happening less and less, but I think that the representation in numbers has been correct up to very recently. On this board there are nine members from the employers, nine trade unionists, eight educationists and the chairman. When it comes to the levy or anything to do with finance, the voting is only by the trade unionists and the employers. The education members have no vote.

Sir D. Renton: My hon. Friend has missed the point. My point was that the agricultural engineering industry is not represented on the board.

Mr. Bryan: I was coming to that point. I am conscious of that fact, and it is probably because the agricultural


engineering industry joined fairly lately. One would hope to put that right as time goes on. I think that the representation is right but it would appear also that the communication is not as good as it might be.
Now I turn to the board's financial position. It is clear that one of its priorities should be the correction of its financial deficit. Its early grant schemes were largely open-ended. Although they have had the desired effect of stimulating training, consequent claims for grants have caused expenditure to exceed income.
The board is already bringing expenditure under control. The block grant introduced last year serves to limit grant expenditure by relating part of it to the amount of a firm's levy. The board has strengthened its methods of budgetary control and has scaled down future capital expenditure particularly on its own training centres. Present indications are that expenditure is being contained, and in the proposals for its next scheme further action is envisaged to strengthen control over grant expenditure and to reduce the deficit.
In a debate like this, clearly we are mostly here because we are worried about faults in the system. We are here in a critical mood and one is apt to overlook the plus points. One must, however, give credit for what the board has achieved. It has achieved a good deal in group training schemes and over a hundred of these have been founded to enable firms which are too small to employ their own specialist training staff to share the services of a training officer.
Its first training centre—M.O.T.E.C.—is operating successfully and most courses there are heavily subscribed. A second centre is now being established. Arguments are heard for and against the development of these centres but it will be found that the board's judgment was right.
The attitude we must take in our judgment is to study both the plusses and minuses and to realise that a lot has been achieved. The question for discussion now is whether we are paying far too high a price for that achievement and whether we cannot improve the quality of training, get rid of some of the administrative costs, get rid of some

of the paper and have something of credit to British industrial training.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order 1970 (S.I., 1970, No. 1062).

DERELICT LAND (CLEARANCE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hawkins.]

11.28 p.m.

Mr. J. D. Dormand: One of the most widely used phrases in the English language today is "the quality of life", which embraces many of the ingredients of good living, but it would be agreed that physical environment makes one of the most important contributions to that quality.
There can be no denying that society today is very concerned with physical environment. That is a good thing. Moreover, Governments have realised that concern and in the Labour Government's Industrial Development Act, 1966, Section 20 provides an opportunity for a determined Government to correct the mistakes of the past.
Some parts of the country have suffered much more than others. Six counties account for 65 per cent. of the whole of the dereliction in England, and my constituency of Easington is in one of those counties, Durham. The people who live in these areas are beginning to demand an improvement in their environment, and they are right to do so. The rest of the country owes a debt to the old industrial areas. George Bernard Shaw puts a truism in the mouth of one of his characters,
You can get used to anything, so you have to be careful what you get used to".
In my constituency, we do not intend to get used to living among dereliction. Insufficient is being done to speed up the reclamation of derelict land.
Let me make a number of quotations from the Hunt Report, Cmnd. 3998, which expressed deep concern about the situation. Paragraph 457 said:
We consider that urgent remedial action is necessary".


Paragraph 459 said:
To date the progress in reclaiming dereliction has been disappointingly slow".
The Hunt Committee reported in 1969, and there has been very little improvement since then.
I remind the Secretary of State of the words in the Queen's Speech:
My Ministers will intensify the drive to remedy past damage to the countryside".
In case the Government feel that we did not believe that promise, in Investment Incentives, Cmnd. 4516, it was stated:
Wider use will be made of the existing powers under the Local Employment Acts for grants towards the cost of providing the basic infrastructure services and of clearing derelict land".
We have had plenty of promises, but in the seven months that the Government have been in office no evidence of the intensification mentioned in the Queen's Speech.
The grant to local authorities in development areas is usually 85 per cent. of the net eligible costs. I should like the right hon. Gentleman's reassurance that the Government's frenetic cutting of public expenditure will not extend to this grant aid which, generous though it is, is evidently not sufficient.
On this aspect of the matter, I was deeply disturbed to read a report in the Observer of 10th January that programmes for the clearance of dereliction were being jeopardised by a Government directive to local authorities. I assume that the report was concerned with Circular 270 from the Department of the Environment, because this very day I have received a letter from the Clerk to Durham County Council on this very matter. The contents can only be described as a bombshell, and it is essential for me to quote from it. It says:
A particular difficulty has arisen in County Durham in connection with our proposed expenditure on clearing and reclaiming derelict land …
About four years ago the County Council, knowing that there was a limited time during which 85 per cent. grant would continue to run, offered to meet the balance of 15 per cent. in full in any case where County District Councils would push ahead with approved schemes designed to get rid of dereliction. This has led to a number of County District Councils appointing staff, planning ahead, buying sites and in many cases these arrangements are at present in mid-stream in the sense that while planning work has started,

expenditure on the resultant scheme has not yet begun. This is also true in the ordinary course of events of a number of County Council schemes which they are carrying out themselves. To expedite this work to the utmost, the County Council set up a special interdepartmental team comprising planners, valuers and engineers with the result that its administrative arrangements are highly geared and we are moving into a period of commitment to expenditure at a high level. The expenditure on getting rid of dereliction has to be spread over a number of years, the first few of which were concerned with comparatively inexpensive but time-consuming preparation followed by a shorter period of very expensive physical work on the land. This is why the national formula
—and this is an important part of the letter—
based as it is on expenditure in the two years ended 31st March 1970 for determining the total amount of money we can spend in 1971–72 in County Durham on dereliction completely fails to meet our forward needs.
Those last few words are of the utmost importance.
The sum involved in the Easington Rural District Council is no less than £230,000. Surely the Government are aware that with schemes of this nature a local authority just cannot break off in the middle of what is a most complex operation. I know, of course, that the Government will say that it is part of their philosophy of freeing the local authorities, but I should like to know how they would reconcile the results of such a doctrinaire policy with their promises on this important matter.
Apart from what was said in the Queen's Speech about investment incentives, the Secretary of State in two Written Answers said:
In addition to maintaining the existing high rates of grant, increasing funds will be made available for this purpose … I can see no reason for a change in the present arrangements …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1970; Vol. 807, c. 130.]
Here we are, less than two months after those answers, having a fundamental change in the arrangements. I do not wish to dwell on this topic, important though it is, but I ask the Government to consider sympathetically making a special allocation to authorities such as Durham and Easington which find themselves in this serious plight. If the Government really mean business in the matter of dereliction, the previous arrangement whereby reclamation was separately financed is infinitely more effective.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary in another place was kind enough to write to me giving information on progress during the three years 1967–70. The number of schemes decreased from 48 to 25, the acreage involved decreased from 996 to 608, and the gross cost decreased from £1,444,723 to £1,144,701. That is a depressing picture given as recently as the end of September, 1970.
I draw the attention of the Secretary of State to an apparent discrepancy in the figures. In answer to my Question on 21st July, 1970, I was informed that for the three-year period 1967–70 the total grant paid was £1,199,579, being 85 per cent. of the cost. In the letter from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to which I have referred I was informed that for the same period the gross cost was £3,701,795. Even with my poor mathematical capacity, I can see that the first figure does not represent 85 per cent. of the second figure, even allowing for it being the gross cost. I press this because many right hon. and hon. Members are interested in this problem, and accurate statistics are essential.
Section 20 of the Act confers on the Department the power to acquire land compulsorily. So far it has not taken over a single acre. I realise that the burden of this falls upon the local authorities, but it shows a complete lack of urgency on the part of the Government that they have not taken any steps at all. The problem as a whole is frightening, in that the total derelict area for the whole of England is between 150,000 and 200,000 acres.
According to a most informative article in Barclays Bank Review of August, 1970, the position is deteriorating. Dereliction is expanding at the rate of 3,500 acres a year. When we see from the Department's figures that the average reclamation for the last three years is 800 acres a year, we can easily deduce the seriousness of the situation. That article estimates that even to maintain the status quo would cost £4½ million, and the Hunt Report states that in England alone the cost of clearing present dereliction will be £100 million. Those figures compare with £1#·2 million actually spent in the last three years. It is clear that we are hardly touching the fringe of this problem.
The figures I have used are those of schemes approved by the Department. I realise that local authorities are under no compulsion to notify the Department, but when one considers that the grant available is 85 per cent., one can reasonably assume that the global figures are accurate.
I believe that the crucial factor in trying to carry out what amounts to a national spring-clean is the degree of determination of both local authorities and the Government. The councils in the County of Durham and in my district of Easington are models of determination, and other local authorities, and, indeed, the Government, could learn a lot from them.
It is clear that something more needs to be done when a grant of 85 per cent. fails to deliver the goods. I am of the opinion that the Hunt Committee's recommendation that a derelict land reclamation agency should be set up is the most valuable and constructive suggestion of all. Such an agency could do at least three things. First, it could focus attention on the problem. That is very important. Indeed, I think that it is of fundamental importance. Secondly, it could provide valuable assistance where local authorities lack the experience and qualified technical staff to deal with dereliction. Thirdly, it could act as a prodder to other local authorities and to the Government.
Much clearance of dereliction is done on a voluntary basis—indeed, tribute must be paid to bodies like the Civic Trust, to school children, to youth club members, and so on—but it requires better organisation and a stimulus. For example, the Secretary of State for Education and Science could send out a circular to all local education authorities encouraging school children, youth club members, including members of community associations and the like, to increase their efforts. Perhaps the Minister could bring that suggestion to the notice of his right hon. Friend.
The Department for the Environment should, from time to time, publish booklets containing good examples of reclamation and send them to the local authorities with the Secretary of State's commendation.
The Government should involve the parish councils much more than they do. Nobody knows better than the parish councils what is required in their areas. Some parish councils are paying active old-age pensioners to undertake part-time work in reclamation; and, equally important, they are paying them to do maintenance work on land which has already been reclaimed. That is a splendid idea which the Government ought to encourage.
Other suggestions could be made for speeding up the clearance of dereliction, but I do not have time to develop them tonight.
Perhaps the most famous words ever written about England were those of Shakespeare, when he wrote,
This precious stone set in the silver sea",
and, in the same passage,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England".
If the Bard could return to England in 1971, what a shock he would get; what a change he would see.
We have a precious heritage, but one which, in parts, was ravaged by the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries and is being similarly ruined by the Industrial Revolution of our own time. Nothing less than the greatest determination on the part of the Government will put the matter right.

11.43 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) for raising this topic tonight. I want to reply personally to his Adjournment debate because I think that this is one of the most important subjects in terms of improving the environment.
I certainly wish to express my determination that the first decade of the new Department of the Environment will be the decade for the disappearance of dereliction. The clearance of derelict land is one of the most obvious ways in which we can improve the environment of those who suffer at present from very bad environmental conditions.
There is always a great deal of Press publicity—rightly so—whenever any important area of beauty being conserved

is in danger from a development scheme. But to my mind there is insufficient publicity on the desperately important subject of converting areas which are not pleasant and beautiful at the moment but rather ugly owing to the results of the Industrial Revolution.
From the moment that I took on responsibility for the programme for clearing derelict land, I made it clear in every possible way that I would do everything to encourage local authorities to pursue more actively programmes of clearance. I have personally spoken to a number of the authorities concerned, and the Government have made it clear that they will certainly retain the level of grants which now exists. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman mentioned 85 per cent. as the figure. In reality, if we add to that what comes in from the rate support grant, it is a still higher figure. For example, in County Durham in reality the figure is 91 per cent. and not 85 per cent. and it can be as high as 95 per cent. of the total cost.
I have spoken to many of the authorities concerned, and it is my intention in the coming twelve months to visit the six worst counties from the point of view of dereliction in order to try to discuss with both county authorities and district authorities the problems involved, to ask them about the difficulties they are meeting, to ask for their comments and advice on the problems they have met in practice, and to try to persuade them to plan more ambitious programmes for the future and to have sensible long-term targets for the clearance of derelict land in their areas.
In this respect the hon. Gentleman suggested the idea of a national agency as mentioned in the Hunt Report. I do not intend to pursue that, because already my Department has collated a great deal of information and knowledge on this topic. My Department already has a regional organisation, and what I want to do is to see that that knowledge and experience in regional offices is used actively to provide information and advice, to see that every local authority is encouraged to fix a realistic target, and to pursue all means of removing the dereliction. The pooling of knowledge aspect, which is very important, will be organised effectively with the whole weight of the Department behind it.
In terms of the current figures, I am not sure why there was a disparity in the figures quoted by the hon. Gentleman. It may be that the grants are given under different Acts, or there may be other reasons for it; but I shall give the total figures, which are very encouraging. The acceleration is already commencing, and I am pleased to give the House the current position. In this financial year local authorities in County Durham, for example, will be spending £600,000, compared with £437,000 last year. In Lancashire the figure will increase sixfold, from £50,000 to £300,000. In the West Riding of Yorkshire the figure will more than quadruple, from £75,000 to £325,000. In Derbyshire the figure is up from £48,000 to £260,000, and in Nottinghamshire it is up from £50,000 to £160,000.
In the County Borough of Stoke on Trent, which is the county borough with probably the worst problem of derelict land in the country, expenditure will have more than quadrupled this year, from £100,000 to £430,000. If Stoke continues at the rate of clearance that it will achieve this year, it will have cleared the whole of its derelict land within a decade, and this is the sort of target which I should like local authorities throughout the country to be setting.
The active encouragement that we are giving to this work will result in substantially better figures next year, and I am confident that next year expenditure on the clearance of derelict land will be more than treble the expenditure in the last financial year of the previous Government. There is an acceleration, and there is no reason why, if local authorities now concentrate and plan ahead, the derelict land that now scars the localities involved should not be removed within the decade.
I recognise the valid point made by the hon. Gentleman, and I am grateful to him for doing so, on the concern that has been expressed about the change in the system of loan sanctions for local authorities. I welcome this opportunity to make it abundantly clear that I shall see that the change in the system will in no way adversely affect the programme of clearing derelict land. The change in the arrangements for loan sanctions is a major step forward in the Government's general policy of reducing

unnecessarily detailed Government ontrol over local authorities. I do not think there is any disagreement between the two sides of the House about the desirability of trying to give total freedom and discretion nearer to the ground and to have less dictation from Whitehall.
But representations have been made that the formula used in the circular might, in certain circumstances, have the undesirable side-effect of producing certain problems in connection with reclamation programmes, especially where those programmes show a fast acceleration compared with what has previously occurred. My Department does not want to put any impediment in the way of local authorities in priority areas carrying out expanding reclamation programmes. I have therefore instructed the Department to arrange to discuss the position with any local authority so affected, and a solution will be found to this problem.
A date for discussions with the Durham County Council has already been agreed and fixed, and in the discussion we shall see that there are no adverse effects from the circular in respect of the problem of derelict land. I can guarantee that the previous historic position in respect of derelict land clearance will not have any adverse effect. The faster that clearance programmes are allowed to proceed the more I shall be pleased.
In this respect I am anxious to see that the figures and statistics concerning derelict land are far more accurate than at present. If we take the total figures already published it is interesting to note that they show an increase due not to new industrial activity but due purely to further areas being regarded as derelict, those areas not having been scheduled before. I have a suspicion that if we went all over the country we should find that the figure was substantially higher than that published at present.
I am anxious to urge local authorities systematically to examine areas of land that can be taken as being derelict and to inform my Department as to the realistic total size of the problem. I am also anxious that the Department should be far more accurate in its information as to the derelict land that will be created by present industrial processes. If we are not careful we shall spend a lot of money in clearing up the present derelict land


at the same time as new derelict land is being created by other industrial processes. That is why, in the collection of statistics, I have asked local authorities not only to give me figures and statistics in respect of the position of historically-created derelict land but am also suggesting to local authorities ways of improving this procedure by collecting information as to the likely creation of derelict land from existing industrial processes.
Where such processes are taking place I want to see that damage is kept to a minimum and that it is then swiftly removed and put right. In this sphere certain organisations have good records. The National Coal Board, where it has carried out opencast mining, has a good record, not only in putting right the damage that it has done but in many cases in substantialy improving an area as a result.
I should like to see that those who carry out industrial processes that of necessity have to create a phase of dereliction will be forced to put the matter right and, where possible, to put the land into an even better position than before. I am also anxious to see that in looking at further developments in planning those local authorities with derelict land—if they are going in for areas of economic expansion and areas of housing and industrial activities—should consider the possibility of using derelict land and, in the process, of improving it—

Mr. Mark Hughes: Will the Minister make some comment on the problem of the compulsory purchase of derelict land under the present Act and its subsequent use for development of another sort? I believe that this is an impediment in County Durham.

Mr. Walker: If the authorities in County Durham would like to approach my Department and point out specific problems where compulsory purchase would be necessary, or would be of assistance, my Department will discuss those problems with them. Any Government would be rightly reluctant to see

these compulsory purchase powers used unless for a very good reason, but if Durham or any other local authority has a problem in this respect that it would like to put to us, that problem will be carefully considered by the Department.
I am anxious to see that in our new activities and in our activities to tackle the past problem, we are active in this sphere. There is a tendency for Parliament—this applies to all Governments: I am not making a party point—to pass legislation which enables people to do things and then to sit back in the belief that everything will happen.
In regard to house improvement grants, I discovered that very good legislation had been passed by my predecessors, but that many people had no idea of the grants available and that many local authorities were not active in this area. I therefore contacted 50 towns and cities and asked them to pursue active publicity campaigns on this matter.
The same approach is needed towards derelict land. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will, as actively as possible, give the maximum encouragement to all local authorities to tackle this problem. With real enthusiasm and effort, and with the know-how which we are now acquiring as a nation in these problems, we could make a dramatic difference to areas of very bad environment over a decade.
There is sometimes a feeling of frustration that, when this problem is being tackled, within a few months the position is not greatly improved. But county boroughs like Stoke which have sensibly embarked on long-term targets and programmes can completely change their environment. Durham and areas like it have a nasty inheritance in this regard. I wanted to come here to give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that there will be no hesitation by my Department about helping such authorities in every possible way.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Twelve o'clock.